Appellant sought the total marks scored and a comparative chart for finalizing the promotional list - CIC: An officer is entitled to copy of his Performance Appraisal Report and information regarding the procedure followed for writing of the PARs

O R D E R

1. The appellant filed an application under the Right to Information Act, 2005 (RTI Act) before the Central Public Information Officer (CPIO), Pandyan Grama Bank, Virudhunagar seeking information on nine points pertaining to performance of employees who participated in both written examination and interview with reference to the circular PAD/01/2013-14 dated 10.04.2013 for staff promotion from the Office Assistant (MP) to the Officer Junior Management scale (Assistant Manager) and with reference to the circular no. PAD/PRO/OAS/4/2013-14 dated 16.08.2013 and the circular no. PAD/39/2013-14 dated 24.08.2013, including, inter-alia, (i) the total marks scored by him and all the successful candidates, and (ii) a comparative chart for finalizing the promotional list.

2. The appellant filed a second appeal before the Commission on the grounds that complete information has not been provided by the CPIO. The appellant requested the Commission to direct the respondent to provide the information sought.

Hearing:

3. The appellant, Mr. V Lakshmanan attended the hearing through video conferencing. The respondent, Mr. S Karuppaiah, General Manager, Pandyan Grama Bank, Virudhunagar attended the hearing through video conferencing.

4. The appellant submitted that though pointwise information has been provided to him vide letter dated 12.06.2017, the information sought for vide point nos. 7, 8 and 9 of the RTI application has not been furnished to him. The appellant submitted that the information sought vide point nos. 7 and 9 of the RTI application pertains to his personal appraisal report and the information sought vide point no. 8 of the RTI application pertains to the procedure followed to award scores for Performance Appraisal. Thus, the CPIO had wrongly denied information on the grounds that the bank has to maintain secrecy regarding the details of staff promotion members and performance appraisal report.

5. The respondent submitted that the procedure for computing the score of the Performance Appraisal Reports is mentioned on the Performance Appraisal Report itself and this is accessible to each and every officer. Further, he agreed to provide copies of the Performance Appraisal Reports of the appellant which were taken into consideration for the purpose of promotion with reference to the circular no. PAD/01/2013-14 dated 10.04.2013 and the circular no. PAD/39/2013-14 dated 24.08.2013.

Decision:

6. The Commission, after hearing the submissions of both the parties and perusing the records, observes that an officer is entitled to seek copies of his Performance Appraisal Reports as well as information regarding the procedure followed for writing of the Performance Appraisal Reports. In view of this, the Commission directs the respondent to provide the information sought for vide point nos. 7, 8 and 9 of the RTI application to the appellant within a period of four weeks from the date of receipt of a copy of this order under intimation to the Commission.

7. With the above observations, the appeal is disposed of.

8. Copy of the decision be provided free of cost to the parties.

Sudhir Bhargava

Information Commissioner

Citation: V Lakshmanan v. CPIO, Pandyan Grama Bank in Second Appeal No. CIC/RUGBK/A/2017/152863, Date: 28.12.2018