Live Law: New Delhi: Saturday, February 10, 2018.
The Delhi
High Court, last week, set aside an order passed by the Central Information
Commission (CIC), wherein the latter had directed the Central Bureau of
Investigation (CBI) to provide one of its officers information relating to the
status of the disciplinary proceedings pending against him.
The CIC had,
in the impugned order, opined that the CBI officer had the “right to know about
his own case”, despite the exemption granted to CBI under Section 24 of the
Right to Information Act, 2005. The Court had now been approached by the
Central Public Information Officer (CPIO) of the CBI appealing against this
order.
The employee,
Mr. Ram Kumar Agrawal had challenged the Appeal relying on exemptions to
Section 24 of the Act, which excludes all intelligence and security
organizations listed in the second schedule from the purview of the Act. He had
made reference to the proviso to Section 24 (1), which clarifies that
information related to corruption and human rights violation would not be
exempt from disclosure even in cases of intelligence and security organizations
like CBI.
Mr. Agrawal
had contended that the information sought by him pertained to the disciplinary
proceedings against him, which had commenced in 2011 but were not being
proceeded with. Meanwhile, his promotion had been withheld due to pendency of these
proceedings. This, he said, caused him immense distress and fell within the
scope of the expression “human rights violations” as used in the first proviso
to Section 24(1) of the Act.
Justice Vibhu
Bakhru, however, opined that service matter disputes cannot be termed as
“violation of human rights”, explaining, “The expression “Human Rights
Violation” as used in proviso to Section 24(1) of the Act cannot be read to
extend all matters where a person alleges violation of fundamental rights.
Plainly, the said expression cannot be extended to include controversies
relating to service matters. The grievances that the petitioner has in respect
of the disciplinary proceedings in uestion do not fall under the ambit of human
rights violations.”
He further
referred to a judgment passed by a coordinate bench of the Court in the case of
Director General and Anr v. Harender, wherein it was held that “no violation of
human rights is involved in service matters, such as promotion, disciplinary isciplinary
actions, pay increments, retiral benefits, pension, gratuity, etc.”
The Court
therefore set aside the impugned order.
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