CIC: PIO shall note that the denial of merit list under Section 8(1)(j) of RTI Act was not appropriate as merit list of recruitments held for public posts should ordinarily be available in public domain in the interest of transparency and probity
22 Jun, 2020Note: The instant cases have been clubbed together for decision as the same Appeal has been erroneously registered twice by the Central Registry of CIC. Further, these cases are being heard in compliance of the direction of Hon’ble High Court of Punjab & Haryana dated 21.01.2020 in CWP No. 4777 of 2019.
Information sought:
The Appellant sought the merit list and cut off marks details of selected candidates of SOL GD Cat of CEE held on 28.01.2018.
Grounds for the Second Appeal:
The CPIO has not provided the desired information.
Relevant Facts emerging during Hearing:
The following were present:-
Appellant: Present through VC. Respondent: Col. N. Satish Kumar, Director(Recruitment) & PIO, Mukhyalaya Bharti Kshetra, Headquarters Recruiting Zone,(Haryana, HP & UT Chandigarh), PIN– 900241, C/o 56 APO present through VC and Lt Col Jagdish Prasad, GSO1(Legal) & Rep. of CPIO, IHQ of MoD(Army) present in person.
Appellant stated that he suspects certain anomalies in the merit list drawn by the Respondent office as despite having scored well he was not selected in his category while more than 300 candidates who scored less than him were recruited from the rally.
Col. N. Satish Kumar, Director (Recruitment) & PIO submitted that the Appellant has been informed that only two candidates from his category were selected and names of the two candidates as well as marks obtained by them has been provided to him. Upon Commission’s instance, PIO further informed that in the relevant category of the Appellant, the cut off marks for selection i.e. marks obtained by the candidate who was second in merit is 177.5 whereas the Appellant who was seventh in the merit list has scored 158 marks in the examination.
Lt. Col. Jagdish Prasad, GSO1 (Legal) & Rep. of CPIO, IHQ of MoD (Army) submitted that he desires to explain the policy and process of recruitment of JCOs and Other Ranks in Indian Army. He submitted that since July 2015 candidates have to register online on the recruitment directorate website to take part in recruitment rally being organized for their district and therefore location of rally does not have any material effect on numbers recruited from a particular location since all eligible candidates can apply online and the endeavor of the Army is to cover each district of the country atleast once a year. He further submitted that the recruitment in Army is based on domicile, merit of candidate and the Annual Wastage Rate of Units and the selection is based on Recruitable Male Population (RMP) of States to give adequate representation to all States. As for the Appellant’s grievance of non selection, it was clarified that recruitment rally was conducted for almost 7-8 different trade categories, and there were only two vacancies for the category i.e SOL GD in which Appellant appeared for the recruitment.
Decision
Commission observes from the contentions of the Appellant during hearing that he did not contest the action of the Respondent office with respect to the provisions of RTI Act, rather harped on the merits of the process and outcome of the averred recruitment rally. It may also be noted that even though as per the PIO’s reply on record, the merit list has been denied to the Appellant 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. 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 RTI Act, the submission of the PIO during hearing that now merit list and marks of the selected candidates has been provided to the Appellant was not contested by him. During the hearing, Commission remarked upon the scope and ambit of RTI Act and explained to the Appellant that the concerns raised by him regarding the process of recruitment cannot be made a subject matter of adjudication under RTI Act.
Notwithstanding the aforesaid, PIO shall note that the denial of merit list 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. 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 RTI Act was not appropriate as merit list of recruitments held for public posts should ordinarily be available in public domain in the interest of transparency and probity. With the above observations, the appeal(s) are disposed of.
Divya Prakash Sinha
Information Commissioner
Citation: Ajay Kumar v. Headquarters Recruiting Zone, Army in File No : CIC/IARMY/A/2018/156926 CIC/IARMY/A/2018/156971, Date of Decision: 18/03/2020