The Hindu: New Delhi: Sunday,
March 09, 2014.
Passport
information, just like the Permanent Account Number of an individual, is
personal information and cannot be disclosed to a third party under the Right
to Information (RTI) Act, the Delhi High Court has held while deciding a bunch
of petitions moved by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA).
“This Court
is also of the view that if the passport number of a third party is furnished
to an applicant, it can be misused. For instance, if the applicant were to
lodge a report with the police that a passport bearing a particular number is
lost, the Passport Authority would automatically revoke the same without
knowledge and to the prejudice of the third party,” a Bench of Justice Manmohan
said.
“After all,
passport number is not only personal information but also an identification
proof, specifically when one travels abroad,” the Bench added.
The MEA,
through counsel P. Roychoudhary, had moved the High Court challenging the order
of the Central Information Commission (CIC) directing it to provide copies of
passports of third parties along with their birth certificates, educational
qualifications and identity proofs to certain applicants under the RTI Act.
The CIC had
held that the information is not personal and that citizen’s right to
information is to be given primacy over their right to privacy.
Initially,
the petitioners, who had either sought passport information of their estranged
spouse or any other third party, were denied information by the passport
office. In appeal, the Chief Passport Officer also refused to part with the
information so sought. The petitioners then moved the CIC, which directed the
information be shared.
The CIC in
its order had said: “Given our dismal record of mis-governance and rampant
corruption which colludes to deny citizens their essential rights and dignity,
it is in the fitness of things that the citizen’s right to information is given
greater primacy with regard to privacy.”
Justice
Manmohan, however, held that the CIC neither examined the issue of larger
public interest nor considered Section 11 of the RTI Act, which mandates that
views of third party whose information has been sought needs to be invited and
considered in such cases before deciding whether to disclose the information or
not.
The Bench
said even if the CIC concluded that passport information was not exempt from
disclosure under the RTI Act, it would still have to follow the third party
information system under the RTI Act.
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