Central Information Commission
Shankar Gyandeo Sadawarti vs Shipping Corp. Of India Ltd. on 4 August, 2020
के ीय सूचना आयोग
Central Information Commission
बाबा गंगनाथ माग, मुिनरका
Baba Gangnath Marg, Munirka
नई िद ी, New Delhi - 110067
File No : CIC/SCOTL/A/2018/159494
Shankar Gyandeo Sadawarti ....अपीलकता/Appellant
VERSUS
बनाम
CPIO,
The Shipping Corporation of India Ltd,
Shipping House,
245, Madam Cama Road,
Mumbai -400021. .... ितवादीगण/Respondent
RTI application filed on : 30/05/2018
CPIO replied on : 05/06/2018
First appeal filed on : 02/07/2018
First Appellate Authority order : 03/08/2018
Second Appeal dated : 25/09/2018
Date of Hearing : 16/07/2020
Date of Decision : 16/07/2020
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INFORMATION COMMISSIONER : DIVYA PRAKASH SINHA
Information sought:
The Appellant sought information through 5 points regarding closure of service of Mrs. S C Koshti EC No.4112 and payment of his dues after closing of service.
Grounds for the Second Appeal:
The CPIO has not provided the desired information.1
Relevant Facts emerging during Hearing:
The following were present:-
Appellant: present on phone.
Respondent: Dipankar Halder, ED(Legal Affairs/Company Secretary) & PIO, Shipping Corporation of India Ltd, Shipping House, 245, Madama Cama Road, Mumbai present on phone.
Appellant urged that PIO has deliberately denied the information sought on paras 1-4 of the RTI Application deeming it to be a third party's personal information. He argued that information sought pertains to one Shweta Koshti; reasons for her severance as an employee from Shipping Corporation of India (SCI) and severance benefits paid to her. He further contended that just because name of the employee has been given it cannot be termed as "personal" information as information sought was not regarding date of birth, her residential address, family details, bank account where her salary was credited etc. He furthermore asserted that Article 14 of the Constitution of India provides equality before Law and Article 15 states that there cannot be any discrimination on the basis of religion, race, sex, caste, place of birth etc. That, if the Respondent office has taken any decision and issued executive orders then same has to be applied in other similar cases without any discrimination. Such decision and executive orders set precedence for future cases similar to how Judgments/Orders issued by various High Courts and Supreme Court are treated as precedents and such orders are always put on the website for information of general public so that they can take advantage of the decision taken in similar cases. That, in the case of Shweta Koshti, her services were discontinued on certain grounds and subsequent benefits were given to her and therefore other people who also fall in the same category should be given same benefits. That, however, SCI Management under the garb of personal information is denying the documents to other similarly placed employee so that they are not exposed in the Court of Law for not maintaining uniformity. In this context, he requested the Commission to direct the PIO to provide the information sought in order to secure justice.
CPIO submitted that information sought at paras 1-4 of the RTI Application pertained to service related details of a third party and disclosure of the same would have caused an unwarranted invasion of their privacy. Upon Commission's instance, PIO tendered his apology for not specifying the denial clause of Section 8(1)(j) of RTI Act and urged that the same was inadvertent. As regards the 2 File No : CIC/SCOTL/A/2018/159494 information sought at para 5 of the RTI Application, CPIO submitted that the date of the Board meeting was not 18.11.2015 as averred by the Appellant, whereas it was 13.11.2015. That, yet, the board note referred therein exists on record but the contents. PIO added that at the relevant time when the instant RTI application was filed, Appellant had priorly filled a Writ Petition No. 2896/2018 dated 16.05.2018 on a similar subject matter before Hon'ble Bombay High Court, Nagpur Bench which was disposed of on 11.07.2018 and subsequent to that Appellant filled a case before Assistant Labour Commissioner(ALC) on 30.08.2018 which was disposed of on 18.11.2019 and subsequently SCI had preferred an Appeal against the ALC order and same is pending before the Competent Authority. That, for such reasons, keeping in view the CIC Judgement in the matter of Milap Choraria Vs. Department of Revenue, Complaint No. CIC/AT/C/2008/00025 dated 27.07.2009, the information sought at para 5 was denied to the Appellant.
Decision Commission observes upon perusal of facts on record thatthe information sought on paras 1-4 of the RTI Application pertains to service matter of a third party, disclosure of which would cause an unwarranted invasion of the privacy of the said individual as per Section 8(1)(j) of RTI Act in the absence of any larger public interest. In this regard, ratio laid down by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the matter of Canara Bank Vs. C.S. Shyam in Civil Appeal No.22 of 2009 may be noted, wherein the scope of Section 8(1)(j) of RTI Act with respect to service matters of government employees has been further exemplified. The relevant portion of the said judgment is 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. XXX
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 3 Deshpande vs. Central Information Commissioner & Ors., (2013) 1 SCC 212 and R.K. Jain vs. Union of India & Anr., (2013) 14 SCC 794, it may not be necessary to re-examine any legal issue urged in this appeal.
13) In Girish Ramchandra Deshpande's case (supra), the petitioner therein (Girish) had sought some personal information of one employee working in Sub Regional Office (provident fund) Akola. All the authorities, exercising their respective powers under the Act, declined the prayer for furnishing the information sought by the petitioner. The High Court in writ petition filed by the petitioner upheld the orders. Aggrieved by all the order, he filed special leave to appeal in this Court. Their Lordships dismissed the appeal and upholding the orders passed by the High Court held as under:-
'12. 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 organisation 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. On the other hand, the disclosure of which would cause unwarranted invasion of privacy of that individual. Of course, in a given case, if the Central Public Information Officer or the State Public Information Officer or the appellate authority is satisfied that the larger public interest justifies the disclosure of such information, appropriate orders could be passed but the petitioner cannot claim those details as a matter of right.
13. The details disclosed by a person in his income tax returns are "personal information" which stand exempted from disclosure under clause (j) of Section 8(1) of the RTI Act, unless involves a larger public interest and the Central Public Information Officer or the State Public Information Officer or the appellate authority is satisfied that the larger public interest justifies the disclosure of such information.'
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 4 File No : CIC/SCOTL/A/2018/159494 information of the individual employee and nor any finding was recorded by the Central Information Commission and the High Court as to the involvement of any larger public interest in supplying such information to respondent No.1..."
Emphasis Supplied Recently, Hon'ble Supreme Court in the matter of Central Public Information Officer, Supreme Court of India Vs. Subhash Chandra Agarwal in Civil Appeal No. 10044 of 2010 with Civil Appeal No. 10045 of 2010 and Civil Appeal No. 2683 of 2010 while explaining the import of "personal information" envisaged under Section 8(1)(j) of RTI Act referred to the above discussed judgments and observed as under:
"59. Reading of the aforesaid judicial precedents, in our opinion, would indicate that personal records, including name, address, physical, mental and psychological status, marks obtained, grades and answer sheets, are all treated as personal information. Similarly, professional records, including qualification, performance, evaluation reports, ACRs, disciplinary proceedings, etc. are all personal information. Medical records, treatment, choice of medicine, list ofhospitals and doctors visited, findings recorded, including that of the family members, information relating to assets, liabilities, income tax returns, details of investments, lending and borrowing, etc. are personal information. Such personal information is entitled to protection from unwarranted invasion of privacy and conditional access is available when stipulation of larger public interest is satisfied. This list is indicative and not exhaustive..." Emphasis Supplied Adverting to the foregoing discussion, Commission is unable to accept the contentions of the Appellant and upholds the submission of the PIO.
However, Commission observes that the PIO has erred in denying the information sought at para 5 of the RTI Application as being sub-judice. It may be noted that there is no provision under RTI Act which allows denial of information on the grounds of sub-judice. In this regard, reference may be had of a judgment of Hon'ble High Court of Delhi in the matter of MCD vs. R.K. Jain [W.P.(C) No. 14120/2009]. The relevant extract of the judgment is reproduced hereunder:5
"5...The matter being sub judice before a court is not one of the categories of information which is exempt from disclosure under any of the clauses of Section 8(1) of the RTI Act."
Now, therefore, PIO is directed to provide a copy of the relevant Board Note as sought atpara 5 of the RTI Application, free of cost to the Appellant within 15 days of receipt of this order and a compliance report to this effect be duly sent to the Commission.
The appeal is disposed of accordingly.
Divya Prakash Sinha (िद काश िस ा) Information Commissioner (सूचना आयु ) Authenticated true copy (अिभ मािणत स ािपत ित) Haro Prasad Sen Dy. Registrar 011-26106140/ [email protected] हरो साद सेन, उप-पंजीयक िदनां क/ Date 6