Is academic qualification of a government employee his personal information?
20 Dec, 2012Background
The appellant filed two applications under the Right to Information (RTI) Act with the National Aluminium Company Ltd. in which he raised a number of queries relating to the recognition of the Degrees awarded by various educational institutions and universities and also about the academic qualification of some specific employees along with the approval status of their degrees. The Public Information Officer (PIO) responded to each of his queries with appropriate response and also informed him that what he is seeking was not information as defined under section 2(f) “information” means any material in any form, including records, documents, memos, e-mails, opinions, advices, press releases, circulars, orders, logbooks, contracts, reports, papers, samples, models, data material held in any electronic form and information relating to any private body which can be accessed by a public authority under any other law for the time being in force; . He denied the academic qualification of employees claiming that it was personal information exempt under section 8(1)(j) Notwithstanding anything contained in this Act, there shall be no obligation to give any citizen, information which relates to personal information the disclosure of which has no relationship to any public activity or interest, or which would cause unwarranted invasion of the privacy of the individual unless the Central Public Information Officer or the State Public Information Officer or the appellate authority, as the case may be, is satisfied that the larger public interest justifies the disclosure of such information: Provided that the information which cannot be denied to the Parliament or a State Legislature shall not be denied to any person. of the RTI Act.
View of CIC
The Central Information Commission (CIC) observed that the expression ‘information’ has been defined in section 2(f) “information” means any material in any form, including records, documents, memos, e-mails, opinions, advices, press releases, circulars, orders, logbooks, contracts, reports, papers, samples, models, data material held in any electronic form and information relating to any private body which can be accessed by a public authority under any other law for the time being in force; of the RTI Act to refer to material record and that the PIO has addressed the queries with appropriate information. The appellant should remember that information refers only to record held either in material or virtual form. Therefore whenever he wanted any information he should ask for the copies of the relevant records. The PIO was not expected to offer clarifications or comments on queries. Regarding the academic qualification of individual employees the Commission held that it is not personal information. Academic qualification is one of the basic requirements for getting into the service of the company. The CIC directed the PIO to forward to the appellant the academic qualification of each of the several employees named by him.
Citation: Mr. Nirmal Kumar Samal v. National Aluminium Company Ltd in File No. CIC/SM/A/2012/000948 & 992
RTI Citation : RTIFI/2012/CIC/887
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