Is Directorate of Education compelled to obtain information from private schools?
27 Oct, 2012Background
The appellant filed an application under the Right to Information (RTI) Act with the Directorate of Education seeking current and earlier residential address of his daughter in the school records; from which bus stand she is picked up and dropped by the school transport and by whom and by which means the school fee is being paid etc. The Public Information Officer (PIO) did not respond to the application. The First Appellate Authority (FAA) rejected the first appeal stating that the information sought by the appellant is about a Public School and is not being maintained in the office. The FAA also stated that due to marital discord between the appellant and his wife the matter was sub-judice in the court and hence the information may be treated as third party information.
Proceedings
During the hearing before the Central Information Commission (CIC), the respondent submitted that the school in which the child is studying is not covered under RTI Act since it is an unaided private school and hence no address of any school students and details of transport provided by the school to the child are available in their records as they are not expected to keep this kind of information.
View of CIC
The Commission held that there was no information available with the Public Authority that can be considered for disclosure and rejected the appeal.
Citation: Mr. Yogesh Kumar Verma v. Directorate of Education in File No: CIC/AD/A/2012/001956
RTI Citation : RTIFI/2012/CIC/753
Click here to view original RTI order of Court / Information Commission