The disclosure of certain personal information is exempt under Section 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act as it pertains to employer-employee confidentiality.

ORDER

1. The complainant filed an application under the Right to Information Act, 2005 (RTI Act) before the Central Public Information Officer (CPIO), O/o. the Director General Of Income Tax (Vig), New Delhi seeking action taken on his letter dated 12-10-2012 along with copy of the file noting.

2. The CPIO responded on 03-10-2019. Thereafter, the complainant filed a complaint u/ Section 18 of the RTI Act before the Commission requesting to take appropriate legal action against the CPIO u/ Section 20 of the RTI Act, 2005.

Hearing:

3. The complainant, Mr. Radha Raman Tripathy attended the hearing through audio conferencing. Ms. Kalyani Malpure, CPIO participated in the hearing representing the respondent through audio conferencing. The written submissions are taken on record.

4. The complainant stated that an appropriate action should be initiated against the CPIO u/ Section 20 of the RTI Act, 2005 for not providing the file noting.

5. The respondent submitted that the complaint under consideration was closed with the approval of the DGIT(Vig.) on 22-04-2013 and this position has been communicated to the complainant vide their letter dated 03-10-2019. She further stated that copies of file notings cannot be provided to the complainant, as the information relating to complaints against public servants and action taken thereon is exempted under section 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act, 2005.

Decision:

6. This Commission observes that the status of the complaint dated 12-10-2012 has already been communicated to the complainant vide letter dated 03-10-2019 thereby indicating that it was closed with the approval of the DGIT(Vig.) on 22-04-2013. It is further observed that the file notings contain personal details about the departmental proceedings of some other individual which is a matter between employer and employee squarely covered by the ratio of the judgment of Hon’ble Supreme Court of India in Girish Ramchandra Deshpande v. Central Information Commissioner &Ors., (2013) 1 SCC 212 , wherein, it was observed as under:-

“13. We are in agreement with the CIC and the courts below that the details called for by the petitioner i.e. copies of all memos issued to the third respondent, show cause notices and orders of censure/punishment etc. are qualified to be personal information as defined in clause (j) of Section 8 (1) of the RTI Act. The performance of an employee/officer in an organization is primarily a matter between the employee and the employer and normally those aspects are governed by the service rules which fall under the expression “personal information”, the disclosure of which has no relationship to any public activity or public interest.”

7. In light of the factual matrix of the instant complaint and the legal principle enunciated by the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India in Girish Ramchandra Deshpande’s case (supra), this Commission agrees with the contentions put forth by the CPIO that the file noting containing personal details about the departmental proceedings of some other individual is purely a matter between employer and employee and hence, it is exempted u/ Section 8 (1)(j) of the RTI Act, 2005.

8. With the above observations, the complaint is disposed of.