India Legal: New Delhi: Saturday,
05 September 2020.
The
Delhi High Court has reiterated that disclosure of personal information is
exempted under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, in absence of any larger
public interest, as it would cause unwarranted invasion of privacy under
Section 8(1)(j) of the Act.
The
division bench of Justices Manmohan and Sanjeev Narula heard an appeal filed by
Dr. R. S. Gupta against the order of a single judge bench.
The fact
of the appeal is that the appellant had filed an RTI application with the
Director of Education, Delhi government, seeking information pertaining to
Geeta Senior Secondary School, in Sultanpuri, in regard to his attendance
record for the period between April 2015 and March 2017 with the attendance
record of the rest of the staff members.
The copy
of the attendance register pertaining to the appellant was provided to him,
while the record concerning the other staff members was refused by the
authority on the ground that the information requested was exempted under
Section 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act.
The
appellant filed an appeal under Section 7 of Delhi Right To Information Act
before the Public Grievance Commission which was dismissed thereon.
The
appellant argued that the authority was not empowered and authorized to decide
the appeal. He further argued that the officer concerned had no inherent power
or specific authorization to act as an appellate authority.
The
court, after hearing both the parties, stated:
“The
fact that respondent No. 3 was declared as the Head of the Department for the
Commission vide order dated 20th March, 2018, does not mean that authority to
discharge the functions of the Appellate Authority stood conferred only from
the said date by virtue of such appointment. Therefore, there is no merit in
the contention of the appellant that the order dated 20th March, 2018 has been
passed by an authority not competent to decide the appeal.”
The
court is of the view that the department could not be compelled to furnish the
information that is not available in the records not maintained by them.
“Thus,
in our view, in absence of even a remote connection with any larger public
interest, disclosure of information would be exempted as the same would cause
unwarranted invasion of the privacy of the individual under section 8(1) (j) of
the RTI Act. Petitioner has thus failed to establish that the information
sought for is for any public interest, much less ‘larger public interest”, the
court opined.
Therefore
the Court has dismissed the appeal.
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