Bar
& Bench: New Delhi: Friday, 05 February 2016.
The Supreme
Court today upheld a decision of the Kerala High Court which had held that the
Public Service Commissions (PSC) are within the purview of the RTI Act and are
bound to provide scanned copies of answer sheets of the written test, copy of
the tabulation sheet and other information sought under the Right to
Information Act, 2005 (RTI Act).
The judgment
was delivered by a Division Bench of Justices MY Eqbal and Arun Mishra.
The Kerala
High Court in its judgment delivered on March 9, 2011, had held that the RTI
Act will apply to State Information Commissions. In the process, the High Court
had turned down the contention that the concept of “information” for the
purpose of the RTI Act has to be
restricted to such information falling within the ambit of fundamental right to
information as part of the fundamental right to freedom of speech and
expression under Article 19 (1) (a).
The High
Court had consequently, directed the PSC to provide answer sheets and details
of interview marks secured by the applicants. It had also directed that details
of examiners who had evaluated the answer sheets be provided to the RTI
applicants.
The PSC had
chosen to challenge this judgment in Supreme Court.
The Supreme
Court today held that the judgment insofar as it relates to the question of
providing answer sheets and interview marks “do not suffer from error of law
and the same is fully justified”.
It, however,
overturned the judgment with respect to the supply of examiners’ details.
“We do not
find any substance in the reasoning given by the Kerala High Court on the
question of disclosure of names of the examiners.”
It allowed
the contention of the PSC that there is a fiduciary relationship between the
examiner and the PSC and disclosure of examiners’ details will be in breach of
the same and might have “unfortunate consequences”.
“In the
present case, the PSC has taken upon itself in appointing the examiners to
evaluate the answer papers and as such, the PSC and examiners stand in a
principal-agent relationship. Here the PSC in the shoes of a Principal has
entrusted the task of evaluating the answer papers to the Examiners.
Consequently, Examiners in the position of agents are bound to evaluate the
answer papers as per the instructions given by the PSC. As a result, a
fiduciary relationship is established between the PSC and the Examiners.
Therefore, any information shared between them is not liable to be disclosed.
…..the
request of the information seeker about the details of the person who had
examined/checked the paper cannot and shall not be provided to the information
seeker as the relationship between the public authority i.e. Service Commission
and the Examiners is totally within fiduciary relationship. The Commission has reposed
trust on the examiners that they will check the exam papers with utmost care,
honesty and impartially and, similarly, the Examiners have faith that they will
not be facing any unfortunate consequences for doing their job properly. If we
allow disclosing name of the examiners in every exam, the unsuccessful
candidates may try to take revenge from the examiners for doing their job
properly. This may, further, create a situation where the potential candidates
in the next similar exam, especially in the same state or in the same level
will try to contact the disclosed examiners for any potential gain by illegal
means in the potential exam.”
It also held
that disclosure of examiners details will not serve any public interest and
will only lead to ‘confusion’ and ‘public unrest’.
“…we don’t
see any logical reason as to how this will benefit him or the public at large.
We would like to point out that the disclosure of the identity of Examiners is
in the least interest of the general public and also any attempt to reveal the
examiner’s identity will give rise to dire consequences. Therefore, in our
considered opinion revealing examiner’s identity will only lead to confusion
and public unrest. Hence, we are not inclined to agree with the decision of the
Kerala High Court with respect to the second question.”
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