Information related to appointment to a Schedule II organisation is not exempt from disclosure

Background

The appellant sought information regarding the appointment of a particular individual as Secretary of RAW. The Public Information Officer (PIO) did not provide the information presumably on the ground that the information related to an organization included in the Second Schedule to the Right to Information (RTI) Act. The First Appellate Authority also didn’t pass any order within the prescribed time limit.

View of CIC

During the hearing, the respondent representing the Cabinet Secretariat submitted that the Appellate Authority had passed an order and had remanded the matter to the PIO for taking further action. He produced a copy of the order passed by the First Appellate Authority in which held that the desired information related to the manner in which the appointment was made to an organization by the competent authority and, therefore, it could not be said that the information was about the exempted organization. The Central Information Commission observed that the Appellate Authority has clearly accepted that the desired information does not relate to the exempted organization but to the Cabinet Secretariat. With this clarification by the First Appellate Authority, the Commission directed the PIO to take appropriate decision at the earliest and communicate to the appellant.

Citation: Shri Subhash Chandra Agrawal v. Cabinet Secretariat in file no. CIC/SM/C/2011/001564