Addressing the issue of unfair promotions of bank officers using RTI
14 Feb, 2013Background
The appellant filed an application under the Right to Information (RTI) Act with State Bank of India (SBI) seeking information about the rural branches of SBI and the officers posted there. The Public Information Officer (PIO) provided some information to the appellant.
Proceeding
During the hearing before the Central Information Commission (CIC), the appellant stated that he sought information on the list of trainee officers who had been posted in the rural branches of the bank from 1992 to 2011 along with the DGMs, AGMs and the assignment appraisal reports for certain years. The respondent submitted that there are thousands of branches all over the country and they do not maintain the information on the basis of classification of rural and urban branches in the manner stated by the appellant. Regarding other information the respondent stated that it is exempt from disclosure 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. The appellant further stated that there are many officers in the bank who had never been posted in the rural areas but have been given privileged postings and that he must get the information because the bank has not been treating him fairly on issues of his promotion. He also submitted that for the last promotion his abilities as reflected in his qualifications were kept out of reckoning and that less deserving candidates have got the promotion.
View of CIC
The Commission directed the respondent to inform the appellant about the basis of appraisal related to promotion of bank officers.
Citation: Mr. Shanti Prakash v. State Bank of India in Decision No. CIC/DS/A/2011/004491/VS/02004
RTI Citation : RTIFI/2013/CIC/1045
Click here to view original RTI order of Court / Information Commission