The main legal point established in the judgment is that the exceptions under Section 24 of the Right to Information Act, 2005, apply to any information pertaining to allegations of corruption and human rights violation, emphasizing transparency and accountability in the functioning of public authorities.

Sanjeev Sachdeva, J.

1. The Central Public Information Officer (hereinafter referred to as CPIO) of the Intelligence Bureau has filed this petition impugning order dated 21.04.2016, passed by the Central Information Commission under the Right to Information Act, 2005 (hereinafter referred to as the ‘Act’).

2. The Central Information Commission (hereinafter referred to as CIC), by the impugned order dated 21.04.2016, has held that the copy of the report of the Intelligence Bureau (hereinafter referred to as IB), concerning the respondent, is information pertaining to allegations of corruption and human rights violation and is, thus, liable to be given to the respondent. The Commission has directed the Intelligence Bureau and the Ministry of Environment, Forests & Climate Change (hereinafter referred to as MoEF) to provide a certified copy of the IB report relating to the respondent, as sought for by him by an application dated 05.12.2015.

3. The directions have been issued by the CIC on arriving at the following conclusion

a. It is factually proved that appellant was put to extreme hardship by the corrupt political rulers and corrupt public servants In retaliation of his unstinted Implementation of rule of law.

b. The gist of IB report as furnished by IB in response to the RTI request of appellant in this case shows that its disclosure could cause no harm to core activity of security or intelligence of IB.

c. section 24 of RTI Act does not authorize the public authorities exempted under this section to block entire Information held by it or generated and given to other public authorities enbloc, but it exclusion from disclosure is limited to that which pertains to core functioning of ‘security’ and ‘intelligence' aspect of exempted organization.

d. The IB report sought by appellant is not the information excluded from purview of disclosure by RTI Act.

e. The IB report is information as per Section 2(f) held by MoEF and also information pertaining to the allegation of corruption or human rights violation as per Section 24 second proviso and hence certified copy of the same shall be given to the appellant.

f. The public authorities exempted under S. 24 cannot use it to stonewall all RTI requests indiscriminately. The IB has a statutory duty to make all arrangements to provide the information other than that concerning ‘security’ and ‘Intelligence’ if it pertains to corruption or human rights violation, or useful to prevent corruption or human rights violation either under voluntary disclosure clauses or other provisions of RTI Act.”

4. The respondent on 05.12.2015 had filed an application seeking information under the Act. The applicant sought the following information:-

“i. Kindly provide me certified copy of all the file noting/documents, correspondences/all type of reports between Ministry of Environment, Forest &Climate Change. Department of Personnel &Training, Cabinet Secretariat and Appointment Committee of Cabinet, regarding interstate Cadre Transfer of Mr. Sanjiv Chaturvedi, IFS, Deputy Secretary AIIMS, New Delhi from Haryana to Uttrakhand (excluding my own representations).

ii. Kindly provide me certified copy of all the file noting/documents/correspondences/all type of reports between Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Department of Personnel &Training, Cabinet Secretariat and Appointment Committee of Cabinet, regarding Interstate Cadre Deputation of Mr. Sanjiv Chaturvedi, IFS, Deputy Secretary, AIIMS, New Delhi, to GNCT, Delhi (excluding my own representations).”

5. The CPIO, MoEF, by its response dated 07.01.2016, to the above application, provided copies of all the correspondences and notesheet other than the representations of the respondent.

6. On 18.01.2016, after receipt of the above documents, the respondent requested for supply of the IB report. The request was made on the ground that a mention had been made in the file noting/correspondences of an IB report abou