Weightage accorded to the remarks of three reporting officers while arriving at the final assessment in the APAR

Background

The appellant had written a letter (enclosing her APAR) to CIT-I, requesting him to secure assessments from three other ROs under whom she had served for different periods in the same year, before taking a view. In this connection she filed an application under Right to Information (RTI) Act seeking whether assessments were secured from three other ROs; weight age accorded to each of them while arriving at the final and composite assessment and if the assessments were received but not considered before arriving at composite assessment. Being dissatisfied with the information provided by the Public Information Officer (PIO), the appellant filed the second appeal in which she submitted a detailed format in which she wanted weight ages accorded by three other officers to be listed out.  

View of CIC

The Central Information Commission (CIC) referred to a Delhi High Court [Union Public Service Commission versus Ran Vijay Singh dt. 24.4.12] which ruled that the RTI Act does not oblige a public authority to create information which the applicant may desire to seek. The public authority is not obliged to analyse, study or arrange the information that it has like a statistician, and present the same in the manner that the applicant may demand. The Commission rejected the appeal observing that there is no obligation on part of the public authority to give the information in a format desired by the appellant.  

Citation: Smt. Neera Malhotra v. Income Tax Department in File No.CIC/DS/A/2011/001742/RM