‘It’s obligatory for PSC to provide evaluated answer-books’
Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Apr 27: In a judgment of far reaching consequences, State Information Commission (SIC) has held that no Public Authority can deny information sought under the provisions of the Jammu and Kashmir Right to Information Act, 2009, by formulating any subjective opinion as the same amounts to over-riding the statutory law.
The judgment has been delivered by Information Commissioner Mohammad Ashraf Mir in a 2nd Appeal filed against the First Appellate Authority and Public Information Officer of the Jammu and Kashmir Public Service Commission for denying evaluated answer sheets of all the papers of Jammu and Kashmir Civil Services Judicial Competitive Examination, 2017 to the appellant.
In response to the RTI application, the Public Information Officer conveyed to the applicant that details of marks secured by each candidate in the Jammu and Kashmir Civil Services Judicial Competitive Examination, 2017 were available on the website of the Public Service Commission. Regarding demand of evaluated answer scripts, the PIO contended that PSC has decided to provide copies of answer scripts only where the examination is of objective type/QMR format and in case of descriptive type examination, the PSC has decided to allow inspection of evaluated answer scripts.
Since the J&K Civil Services Judicial Competitive Examination, 2017 was a descriptive type examination, the PIO accordingly offered inspection of all answer scripts of the applicant instead of taking copies of the same.
The appellant submitted before the Information Commission that he was not interested in inspection of answer scripts and wanted hard copies of all his answer sheets. He even cited the celebrated judgment of Supreme Court titled “CBSE Versus Aditya Bandopadhyay and Others” and the judgment of Central Information Commission in case titled “Swati Babbar Versus GGSIP University”.
After hearing both the sides in length, the Information Commissioner Mohammad Ashraf Mir, while referring to the appropriate provisions of the Jammu and Kashmir Right to Information Act, 2009, observed, “there is no dispute regarding the fact that an evaluated answer script is an information within the meaning of Section 2(d) of the J&K RTI Act, which corresponds to Section 2(f) of the Central Right to Information Act, 2005”.
Referring the judgment of Supreme Court in “CBSE Versus Aditya Bandopadhyay and Others” case, the Information Commission further observed, “there is also no dispute that right to information includes inspection of documents/records as well as taking extracts or certified copies of documents or records in terms of Section 2(i) of the Act”, adding “Section 7(9) of the RTI Act explicitly and unequivocally provides that information shall ordinarily be provided in the form in which it is sought unless it would disproportionately divert the resources of the Public Authority or would be detrimental to the safety or preservation of the record in question”.
“Providing the copies of evaluated answer scripts in the present case can hardly divert the resources of the Public Service Commission or would have any detrimental effect so far as safety and preservation of records is concerned”, the Information Commission said, adding “as per the law laid down on the subject by different courts and the Central Information Commission, evaluated answer books are not exempted from disclosure under any of the clauses of Section 8(1) of the RTI Act. Moreover, an examination body is under an obligation under the provisions of RTI Act to provide access to a candidate to his evaluated answer-books by either inspecting them or taking certified copies”.
Accordingly, the Information Commission held that the Jammu and Kashmir Public Service Commission cannot deny copies of answer scripts. “The contention of the PIO that the Commission has in its wisdom decided not to allow copies of descriptive answer sheets doesn’t hold any water”, the Commission said, adding “a democratic set up is governed by rule of law not by the wisdom of a few and subjective opinion of any organization cannot be a ground for denying information as the same amounts to over-riding the statutory law”.
“Even the internal rules and bye-laws of the Public Service Commission don’t stand in view of the law laid down by the Apex Court of the country in “CBSE Versus Aditya Bandopadhyay and Others” case”, the Information Commissioner said and directed the PSC to provide copies of evaluated answer sheets to the appellant Advocate Anjeet Singh within a period of two weeks from the opening of office at Srinagar.
According to the sources in the Information Commission, denying information on the basis of subjective opinion has become a routine in most of the Public Authorities in the State but this judgment would go a long way in checking this tendency.
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