Disclosure of medical records to the son of the deceased under RTI
24 Jul, 2012Background
The appellant sought information related to his late father’s death, such as, the cause of death, period of his illness, his ailment and a copy of his medical reports. The Public Information Officer (PIO) denied the information 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 Right to Information (RTI) Act stating that it was personal information of the employee, the disclosure of which has no relationship to any public activity or interest and would cause unwarranted invasion of the privacy of individual. The First Appellate Authority (FAA) claimed that the appellant’s father was not an employee of this center and was a Corporate Health Service Scheme (CHSS) beneficiary under Contributory Health Service Scheme of this department. Medical information about any person is protected by the Code of Professional Conduct made by the Medical Council of India (MCI) under section 33 (M) read with section 20(A) of the Act.
Proceedings
During the hearing, the PIO stated that the matter is about 10 years old and the records may have been given to appellant’s sister and he is not sure whether the records are available.
View of CIC
The Central Information Commission (CIC) directed the PIO to provide an attested photocopy of records, if available, to the appellant and if the records are not available this should be clearly stated.
Citation: Mr. E.P Vinod Kurup v. Baba Atomic Research Center Department of Atomic Energy, in Decision No. CIC/SM/A/2011/000052/SG/19381
RTI Citation : RTIFI/2012/CIC/499
Click here to view original RTI order of Court / Information Commission