The main legal point established in the judgment is the exemption of personal information, such as caste certificates, from disclosure under RTI Act Section 8(1)(j) unless there is a larger public interest justifying the disclosure.

JUDGMENT :

1. The challenge in this petition is to an order passed by the CIC dated November 24, 2015, whereby the CIC has directed the respondent no.1 herein to provide to the respondent no.2, OBC certificate of the petitioner.

2. The challenge to the order is on the ground that respondent no.2 is a neighbor and co-sharer in the property of the petitioner and has no cordial relationship due to a property dispute. Therefore, in order to harass and put pressure on petitioner and his family to come for a settlement in the property dispute, an application for seeking information has been filed. According to the petitioner, respondent no.2 is not a bona fide information seeker for the said reason.

3. It is contended by the learned counsel for the petitioner that the CIC has failed to appreciate that neither the PIO nor the Appellate Authority has disposed of the RTI Application, therefore, in the absence of any decision taken by any authority, the appeal before the CIC was not maintainable. Hence, the CIC without considering the background of the case, and the fact personal information is protected under Section 8 of the RTI Act directed the Department of the petitioner to supply the same while passing the impugned order, which is untenable.

4. According to the learned counsel for the petitioner the caste and educational certificate of an employee are in the nature of personal information about a third party. Hence, this type of information is exempted from disclosure. He would rely upon the Judgment of the Supreme Court in the case of Girish Ramchandra Deshpande v. Central Information Commissioner and Ors. (2013) 1 SCCC 212.

5. Respondent no.1 has filed its counter-affidavit to state that respondent no.2 has filed his first RTI application at ITI, Jahangir Puri, Delhi on May 16, 2013 and August 12, 2013 in which the post of Baljeet Singh, petitioner herein was not mentioned clearly and accordingly reply was sent to Sh. Pratap Singh, respondent no.2 by the PIO. It is also stated that the petitioner was aware regarding the RTI filed by respondent no.2 and he has accordingly submitted a written request to the PIO/HOO and by giving reference to the property case requested not to share his personal information with any person. Respondent no.2 not being satisfied with the reply of PIO dated September 2, 2013 moved to the first Appellate Authority to obtain the record in respect of the petitioner. Then the first Appellate Authority supplied all the existing relevant records with the first Appellate Authority to the respondent no.2 with a direction, if the respondent no.2 is not satisfied, he may move the second Appellate Authority, i.e., CIC. However, instead of moving the second Appellate Authority, respondent no.2 filed various complaints to the first Appellate Authority and other higher authorities of the department to obtain the personal record of the petitioner which lingered on/delayed the matter in the department as respondent no.2 dragged the family dispute in his complaint, which resulted in valuable time of the department spoiled by the respondent no.2 as he wanted to settle his personal grudge against the petitioner instead of moving towards second appeal in CIC. It is also stated that the CIC passed the order November 24, 2015 after having heard the submissions of both the parties and in compliance thereof ITI Jahangir Puri, Delhi supplied the copy of the OBC certificate by blocking the address and other personal information of the petitioner Sh. Baljeet Singh to respondent no.2 Sh. Pratap Singh. Even though, the petitioner has submitted a written representation dated December 18, 2015 to defer the supply of the personal record to the respondent no.2 which was received by PIO on December 21, 2015, meanwhile, the PIO has already obeyed with the order of the CIC. Therefore, there was no reason to consider the written representation of the petitioner dated December 18, 2015.

6. An issue has arisen whether the OBC certificate has been