LPA No.22 of 2012

Page 1 of 12

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IN THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI

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LPA No.22 of 2012

Reserved on: February 07, 2012

Pronounced on: April 20, 2012

R.K. JAIN

. . . APPELLANT

Through:

Mr.

Prashant

Bhushan,

Advocate.

VERSUS

UNION OF INDIA & ANR.

. . .RESPONDENTS

Through:

Ms. Maneesha Dhir with Ms.

Geeta Sharma, Advocates.

CORAM :-

HON’BLE THE ACTING CHIEF JUSTICE

HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE RAJIV SAHAI ENDLAW

A.K. SIKRI (ACTING CHIEF JUSTICE)

1.

The appellant is seeking information under Right to Information

Act, 2005 (hereinafter referred to as „the RTI Act‟), which has

been denied to him by all the Authorities below including the

learned Single Judge of this Court. To put it crisply, at this

stage itself, the appellant wants information about some

adverse entries allegedly made in the Annual Confidential

Report of Ms. Jyoti Balasundram, Member/CESTAT by the

President of the CESTAT for the year 2000-01 and follow-up

action thereupon. The CPIO of CESTAT refused to divulge any

information on the ground that it was exempted under Section

8(1)(i) of the RTI Act.

2.

The writ petition filed before the learned Single Judge has been

decided vide orders dated 08.12.2011 whereby the learned

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LPA No.22 of 2012

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Single Judge held that the information sought by the appellant

herein is “the third party information” wherein the third party

may plead a „privacy‟ defence and the proper question would

be as to whether divulging of such an information is in the

public interest or not. Thus, the matter has been remitted

back to the Chief Information Commissioner to consider this

issue after following the procedure prescribed in Section 11 of

the RTI Act and then decide the same. The learned Single

Judge has relied upon the Division Bench judgment of this

Court in the case of Arvind Kejriwal Vs. CPIO, AIR 2010

Delhi 216 for taking the aforesaid course of action.

3.

Undeterred, the appellant has filed the instant intra-Court

appeal questioning the manner in which the writ petition is

disposed of as the appellant pleads that without further ado he

is entitled to information sought for. Though indicated above

in brief, we may reiterate that as per the appellant, there was

certain

complaints

qua

corruption

against

Ms.

Jyoti

Balasundaram,

Member/CESTAT.

After

examining

this

complaint, the then President of CESTAT who was former Chief

Justice of High Court made certain adverse entries in the ACR

of the said Member which pertained to the year 2000-01.

According to the appellant, on the basis of the said ACR,

Department of Revenue in the Ministry of Finance opened

another file with the subject “follow up action on the integrity

in the ACR for the year 2000-01 in respect of Ms. Jyoti

Balasundaram, Member (Tech), CESTAT.” Ultimately, this file

was closed without taking any proper action. The appellant on

this premise wanted inspection of the file as well as the copies

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of the Note Sheets and correspondence. He, thus, filed an

application under RTI Act on 07.10.2009 seeking information

and copies of the Note Sheets and correspondence pages of

PLAINTIFF File No.27/3/2002-AD.IC.

4.

On 15.10.2009, the CPIO of CESTAT informed the appellant

that the file contained analysis of the ACR of the said Member

and claimed it to be exempted under Section 8(1)(i) of the RTI

Act. The first Appellate Authority rejected the appeal on the

same ground on 18.12.2009. Further appeal before the CIC

met the same fate as the CIC also held that ACR grades could

be disclosed only to the person to whom it relates except in the

exceptional circumstances. In the brief order of the CIC,

following portion is relevant and is therefore extracted herein:

“5.

It is not in doubt that the file referred to by the

appellant related to the Annual Confidential Record