Daily Excelsior: Jammu: Tuesday, January 23, 2018.
State
Information Commission has held that legal opinion to the university by the
Standing Counsel cannot be termed as privileged and confidential communication
by invoking the provisions of the Evidence Act and cannot be denied under
J&K Right to Information Act.
The decision
was taken in two 2nd appeals arisen out of the orders of the First Appellate
Authority (Registrar University of Jammu) and the disposal of RTI applications
filed by the appellant Dr Sapna Sharma by the PIO of the University of Jammu.
The appellant
had requested for providing the copies of legal opinion obtained by the
university in the regularization matter of Dr Bharti Prabhakar, Dr Pallavi
Sachdeva and Dr Sandeep Singh besides the copy of communication of Department
of Sociology applying for UGC-SAP and copy of minutes of DAC, Department of
Sociology downgrading the post of Reader in 2005-06.
While rest of
the information was provided to the appellant yet copies of the legal opinions
tendered by the Standing Counsel of the university was not given on the ground
of being third party information.
The issues
before the State Information Commission in the 2nd appeals was whether legal
opinion can be termed as information within the meaning of Section 2(d) of the
J&K RTI Act, 2009; whether the legal opinion obtained by the university
from its Standing Counsel can be categorized as privileged and confidential
information and hence immune from disclosure and whether such information can
be termed as information given in a fiduciary capacity and exempted from
disclosure under Section 8(1)(e) of the J&K RTI Act, 2009.
Keeping in
view judicial pronouncements and the orders of the Central Information
Commission, the Information Commissioner Mohammad Ashraf Mir observed, “the
legal advice tendered by the Standing Counsel to the university cannot be
termed as privileged and confidential communication by invoking the provisions
of the Evidence Act and the same cannot be denied under RTI Act in view of the
overriding effect of the provisions of RTI Act over all other laws including
the Evidence Act”.
“University
cannot be said to be holding such information in fiduciary capacity so as to
claim exemption under Section 8(1)(e) of J&K RTI Act, 2009. Only the
Standing Counsel of the university can claim fiduciary relationship with the
university in case the applicant directly seeks information from him”, the
Information Commissioner said, adding “even the information held by a person in
fiduciary capacity is to be disclosed in the larger public interest”.
While setting
aside the orders of the PIO and FAA, the Information Commissioner directed the
PIO to provide copies of legal opinions obtained by the university in the
regularization matters of Dr Bharti Prabhakar, Dr Pallavi Sachdeva and Dr
Sandeep Singh within a period of three weeks.