The main legal point established in the judgment is the importance of following the statutory provisions, particularly Section 11 of the RTI Act, when handling requests for third party information and balancing the right to information with the right to privacy.

Manmohan, J. (Oral)

1. Present batch of writ petitions has been filed challenging the orders of the Central Information Commission (for short ‘CIC’) whereby the petitioner-Ministry of External Affairs has been directed to provide copies of passports of third parties along with their birth certificates, educational qualifications and identity proofs. Since the reasoning of the CIC in all the impugned orders is identical, the relevant portion of the impugned order in W.P.(C) 3406/2012 is reproduced hereinbelow:-

“We can also look at this from another aspect. The State has no right to invade the privacy of individual. There are some extraordinary situations where the State may be allowed to invade the privacy of a Citizen. In those circumstances special provisions of the law apply;- usually with certain safeguards. Therefore where the State routinely obtains information from Citizens, this information is in relationship to a public activity and will not be an intrusion on privacy.

Certain human rights such as liberty, freedom of expression or right to life are universal and therefore would apply uniformly to all human beings worldwide. However, the concept of ‘privacy’is a cultural notion, related to social norms, and different societies would look at these differently. Therefore referring to the UK Data protection act or the laws of other countries to define ‘privacy’cannot be considered a valid exercise to constrain the Citizen’s fundamental Right to Information in India. Parliament has not codified theright to privacy so far, hence in balancing the Right to Information of Citizens and the individual’s Right to Privacy the Citizen’s Right to Information would be given greater weightage. The Supreme Court of India has ruled that Citizens have a right to know about charges against candidates for elections as well as details of their assets, since they desire to offer themselves for public service. It is obvious then that those who are public servants cannot claim exemption from disclosure of charges against them or details of their assets. Given our dismal record of misgovernance and rampant corruption which colludes to deny Citizens their essential rights and dignity, it is in the fitness of things that the Citizen’s Right to Information is given greater primacy with regard to privacy.”

2. Despite filing affidavit of service, none has appeared for the respondents today. Even yesterday, none had appeared for the respondents. Consequently, this Court has no other option but to proceed with the matter ex parte.

3. Mr. Rakesh Tiku, learned senior counsel for petitioners submits that CIC failed to appreciate that the passport application contains personal information and if disclosed, would cause unwarranted invasion of privacy of third party. He further submits that even if the CIC came to the conclusion that the information sought for was not exempt from disclosure under Section 8(1)(j) of the Right to Information Act, 2005 (for short ‘RTI Act’), it would still have to follow the third party information procedure under Section 11 of the RTI Act.

4. Mr. Tiku fairly points out that in connected matters, i.e., W.P.(C) Nos. 2232/2012, 8932/2011, 3421/2012, 1263/2012, 1677/2012, 1794/2012, 2231/2012, a co-ordinate bench of this Court has directed the Ministry of External Affairs to give details of passport to third parties like passport number, date of its first issue, subsequent renewals, the name of police station from which verification had been done, nature of documents submitted with the passport application without disclosing the contents of those documents along with the information as to whether Visa was issued to the third party.

5. Mr. Tiku, however, submits that the reasoning in W.P.(C) 2232/2012 for release of third party information that the said information was generated by Ministry of External Affairs, is untenable in law. According to him, if this reasoning were to be accepted, then a third party’s Permanent Account N