This question if gets an answer as ‘yes’ may sound a bit weird and
unwarranted in employee’s point of view as nobody would like supply of personal
records to public.
Of Course there is sense in employee’s case in this issue as Service
book of an Government Employee contains very important information about
his/her service including disciplinary proceedings taken against him/her.
More seriously, Service Book of a Government Employee would also contain
certain personal information such as nominees, present health status, whether
undergone any family planning procedures etc., which could be misused against
an employee by unscrupulous elements under the cover of RTI.
However, Central Information Commission has decided in a case recently
which came for appeal that PIO to supply a copy of the service record of
employee under RTI after invoking Sec.10(1) of the RTI Act to sever all those
portions that are exempt from disclosure u/s 8(1)(j) of the Act as personal
information.
An Extract of order portion in this case is as follows.
“The
Commission however, holds that the Public Authority is obligated under section
4(1)(b) the RTI Act to disclose information related to the service of its
employees and is not convinced by Shri D’Costa’s argument that such disclosure
will endanger his physical safety as all this information is anyway expected to
be placed in the public domain.
The Commission accordingly directs the PIO to supply a copy of the service record of Shri Allan D’Costa to the Appellant after invoking Sec.10(1) of the RTI Act to sever all those portions that are exempt from disclosure u/s 8(1)(j) of the Act as personal information. The information should reach the Appellant within four weeks of receipt of this order.”
The Commission accordingly directs the PIO to supply a copy of the service record of Shri Allan D’Costa to the Appellant after invoking Sec.10(1) of the RTI Act to sever all those portions that are exempt from disclosure u/s 8(1)(j) of the Act as personal information. The information should reach the Appellant within four weeks of receipt of this order.”
Though CIC ruling contains a rider for safeguarding private information
of a Government employee out of purview of RTI, officials who actually supply
information under RTI may find it difficult to differentiate between public and
private information related to an employee. In the process, RTI information
seeker with profit or malicious motive could sneak in with private information
of Government employees.
We hope Government would come up with a meaningful classification of
public and private information of a Government Employee and notifiy the same
for effective implementation at lower level, which could find an effective
soultion to this issue
Source: rtiIndia.org
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