Selection of jury and awardees for the National Film Awards
24 Dec, 2011
Background
The appellant sought information about National Film Awards given to different categories, details of jury members and reason for choosing the film for nomination for the last five years along with note sheet and other relevant documents, separately year wise. The PIO furnished list of jury members for each year and as informed that as per clause 19.1 of Regulations, the eligibility criteria for selecting jury members is “Jury person are distinguished in the field of cinema, other allied arts and humanities”. Regarding the information in detail for choosing film/persons (in all categories) by the jury, it was informed that the note sheets/evaluation sheets of the members are confidential which remains within jury and are not provided to Directorate of Film Festival (DFF). The FAA observed that the results are provided to DFF in the final shape only and the DFF does not possess or take possession of assessment evaluation sheets or notes of Jury members. In accordance with Clause 21 (C) of Regulation, they are treated as confidential and the jury members do not share the material with each other.
View of CIC
Before Commission, the respondent stated that the information available on the records has been provided. It was informed that there has been a convention by which the evaluation sheets are not given by the Jury Members and only the results are provided.
Comments
For future, the selection of the jury and thereafter the selection of the awardees by them can be made transparent instead of merely relying upon the conventions.
Citation: Mr. Ashwini Shrivastava v. Ministry of Information and Broadcasting in Decision No. CIC/SG/A/2011/002748/16404