ORDER

1. The appellant filed an application under the Right to Information Act, 2005 (RTI Act) before the Central Public Information Officer (CPIO), Indian Oil Corporation Limited, Bhopal. The appellant seeking information regarding list of all area Managers and field officers posted at Raipur area office of IOCL and their details viz name, designation, posting address, mobile number, copies of educational qualification, copy of service book record, etc.

2. As the CPIO had not provided the requested information, the appellant filed the first appeal dated 29.04.2019 requesting that the information should be provided to him. The first appellate authority was ordered on 04.06.2019 and disposed of his first appeal. He filed a second appeal u/Section 19(3) of the RTI Act before the Commission on the ground that information has not been provided to him and requested the Commission to direct the respondent to provide complete and correct information.

Hearing:

3. The appellant was not present despite notice. The respondent, Shri Raghab Mishra, CPIO attended the hearing through video-conferencing.

4. The respondent submitted their written submissions dated 17.03.2021 and the same has been taken on record.

5. The respondent submitted that vide their letters dated 24.04.2019 and 04.06.2019, they have given the information to the appellant regarding the employee numbers, name, designation and educational qualifications of all the employees posted at Raipur Area Office for the period October 2012-March 2019. The respondent submitted that the remaining information viz. copy of service records, etc. has been denied to the appellant, as it is exempted from disclosure under Section 8(1)(g) and 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act.

Decision:

6. The Commission, after hearing the submissions of the respondent and after perusal of records, observes that the information viz. employee numbers, name, designation and educational qualifications of all the employees posted at Raipur Area Office for the period October 2012-March 2019 has already been provided to the appellant. The Commission further observed that other documents of third party cannot be provided to the appellant, as it is exempted from disclosure under Section 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act. In this regard, the Commission referred to the judgment of the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India in the matter of Canara Bank Rep. by its Deputy Gen. Manager v. C.S. Shyam, Civil Appeal No. 22 of 2009 dated 31.08.2017 had held as under:

“5) The information was sought on 15 parameters with regard to various aspects of transfers of clerical staff and staff of the Bank with regard to individual employees. This information was in relation to the personal details of individual employee such as the date of his/her joining, designation, details of promotion earned, date of his/her joining to the Branch where he/she is posted, the authorities who issued the transfer orders etc. etc

11) Having heard the learned counsel for the appellant and on perusal of the record of the case, we are inclined to allow the appeal, set aside the impugned order and dismiss the application submitted by the 1st respondent under Section 6 of the Act.

12) In our considered opinion, the issue involved herein remains no more res integra and stands settled by two decisions of this Court in Girish Ramchandra Deshpande vs. Central Information Commissioner & Ors., (2013) 1 SCC 212 and R.K. Jain vs. Union of India & Anr., (2013) 14 SCC 794, 5 it may not be necessary to re-examine any legal issue urged in this appeal.

14) In our considered opinion, the aforementioned principle of law applies to the facts of this case on all force. It is for the reasons that, firstly, the information sought by respondent No.1 of individual employees working in the Bank was personal in nature; secondly, it was exempted from being disclosed under Section 8(j) of the Act and lastly, neither respondent No.1 disclosed any public interest much less larger public interest involved in seeking such inf