Information regarding awarding of qualification marks for promotion was sought by appellant claiming that he has not promoted for 30 years - PIO: collection & collation of information would result in avoidable diversion of man power - CIC: order upheld

Facts

1. The appellant, Shri K K A Raghvan, submitted RTI application dated 1 February 2013 before the Central Public Information Officer (CPIO), United India Insurance Co. Ltd., Chennai, seeking information in connection with awarding of qualification marks for MBA, through a total of 18 points.

2. Vide reply dated 4 March 2013, the CPIO furnished point wise reply to the information sought by the appellant. Dissatisfied by the reply of the CPIO, the appellant preferred appeal dated 3 April 2013 before the first appellate authority (FAA). Vide order dated 23 April 2013, the FAA upheld the decision of CPIO and further held that the information sought by the appellant is voluminous and hence exempted u/s 7 (9) of the RTI Act, 2005.

3. Not satisfied with the response of the public authority, the appellant preferred second appeal before the Commission.

4. The matter was heard by the Commission. The appellant submitted that he joined the respondent company in the year 1983 as stenographer and he had not been given promotion in his entire carrier of more than 30 years despite of his dedicated service because of the bad promotion policy of the company. He also submitted that he had sought information in connection with awarding of qualification marks for MBA for the purpose of promotion. He alleged that he had not received any information regarding the queries raised by him and wanted to know as to how the company verified the genuineness of the MBA degrees submitted by the employees for the purpose of their promotion.

5. The respondents submitted that they had furnished information to the appellant which was readily available with them but some information which required diversion of manpower resources was denied u/s 7(9) An information shall ordinarily be provided in the form in which it is sought unless it would disproportionately divert the resources of the public authority or would be detrimental to the safety or preservation of the record in question. of the RTI Act. They submitted that they used to give marks on MBA degree issued by a recognized university approved by AICTE (All India Council for Technical Education). They added that this new promotion policy involving the MBA marks for promotion came only in the year 2008 while the appellant has been working in the company since 1983, so it was wrong to say that his promotion was hindered just because of this new promotion policy which entitles the MBA degree holders for some additional marks for the same. They again submitted that they do not keep their records in the form in which the appellant had sought information but they agreed to furnish the number of employees who got promotion with the MBA qualification from the year 2008 onwards. They also submitted that, the employees of the companies desiring to attend a regular course of MBA have to give prior information to the company but there is no such requirement in case of doing an MBA course from distance learning mode.

6. In view of the above submissions, the Commission accepts the submission of the respondents that the collection and collation of all the information sought by the appellant will result in avoidable diversion of man power. The Commission, however, directs the respondents to provide the number of employees having MBA degree who got this promotion from 2008 onwards within 7 days of the receipt of the order of the Commission.

(Manjula Prasher)

Information Commissioner

Citation: Shri K K A Raghvan v. United India Insurance Co. Ltd., in Appeal: No. CIC/DS/A/2013/002387/MP