Information regarding empanelment of officers in the Indian Railways
13 Dec, 2012Background
The appellant filed an application under the Right to Information (RTI) Act with the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) seeking to know the action taken on some representations he had sent from time to time. He also sought the copies of the file noting and other related documents in respect of the empanelment of officers for the post of General Manager in the Indian Railways for the years 2010-11 and 2011-12. The Public Information Officer (PIO) stated that this particular section in the DoPT had not received any of these representations however; three of his representation had been received in some other section and were then forwarded to the Ministry of Railways. The PIO denied the remaining information on the ground that the records relating to the empanelment of officers for the post of General Manager were part of the ACC papers and exempted for disclosure under section 8(1)(i) Notwithstanding anything contained in this Act, there shall be no obligation to give any citizen, cabinet papers including records of deliberations of the Council of Ministers, Secretaries and other officers: Provided that the decisions of Council of Ministers, the reasons thereof, and the material on the basis of which the decisions were taken shall be made public after the decision has been taken, and the matter is complete, or over: Provided further that those matters which come under the exemptions specified in this section shall not be disclosed; Notwithstanding anything contained in this Act, there shall be no obligation to give any citizen, cabinet papers including records of deliberations of the Council of Ministers, Secretaries and other officers: Provided that the decisions of Council of Ministers, the reasons thereof, and the material on the basis of which the decisions were taken shall be made public after the decision has been taken, and the matter is complete, or over: Provided further that those matters which come under the exemptions specified in this section shall not be disclosed; of the RTI Act.
View of CIC
The Central Information Commission (CIC) observed that as far as the representations of the appellant were concerned the DoPT seems not to have taken any other action on those than forwarding those to the Ministry of Railways. Regarding the ACC papers the CIC held that in the past in respect of ACC papers any disclosure has been stayed by the Delhi High Court and it would be better to await the final decision of the High Court on this subject. The CIC also ruled that such records should be disclosed after the decision of the Cabinet/ ACC are fully implemented as per the proviso to section 8(1)(i) Notwithstanding anything contained in this Act, there shall be no obligation to give any citizen, cabinet papers including records of deliberations of the Council of Ministers, Secretaries and other officers: Provided that the decisions of Council of Ministers, the reasons thereof, and the material on the basis of which the decisions were taken shall be made public after the decision has been taken, and the matter is complete, or over: Provided further that those matters which come under the exemptions specified in this section shall not be disclosed; Notwithstanding anything contained in this Act, there shall be no obligation to give any citizen, cabinet papers including records of deliberations of the Council of Ministers, Secretaries and other officers: Provided that the decisions of Council of Ministers, the reasons thereof, and the material on the basis of which the decisions were taken shall be made public after the decision has been taken, and the matter is complete, or over: Provided further that those matters which come under the exemptions specified in this section shall not be disclosed; of the RTI Act.
Citation: Mr. S K Arya v. Department of Personnel and Training in File No.CIC/SM/A/2012/000266
RTI Citation : RTIFI/2012/CIC/871
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