UNION PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION Vs. CENTRAN INFORMATION COMMISSION

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) has filed this writ petition praying for the setting aside of the order dated 13.11.2006 passed by the Central Information Commission, New Delhi in an appeal under Section 19 (3) of the Right to Information Act, 2005 (hereinafter referred to as 'the RTI Act').

(2.) The issue involved in the present petition relates to the disclosure of cut-off marks for the optional subjects as well as for general studies of the Civil Services (Preliminary Examination), 2006, which was conducted by the UPSC. The disclosure of the separate cut-off marks in respect of each subject in the said examination for the different categories of candidates, namely, General, OBC, SC, ST and Physically Handicapped is also in question. The question of disclosure of the individual marks obtained by each of the candidates as well as the disclosure of the model answers to each series of questions for all the subjects is also in issue. The respondent nos. 2 to 24 are candidates, who had appeared in the Civil Services (Preliminary) Examination, 2006 and had sought this information from the Central Public Information Officer (CPIO) of the UPSC. For this purpose, applications were made sometime in August, 2006. These applications were disposed of by separate orders by the CPIO. One such order dated 07.09.2006 has been placed in the paper book as Annexure-B to the petition. Rejecting the applications for information, the CPIO gave, inter alia, the following reasons:-

(3.) Being aggrieved by the rejection of their applications and consequent non-disclosure of the information sought by them, the respondents 2 to 24 filed two separate appeals on 03.10.2006 and 06.10.2006 before the appellate authority of the UPSC under Section 19 (1) of the RTI Act. Apparently, some of the candidates alongwith others had also filed complaints before the Central Information Commission under Section 18 (1) (b) of the RTI Act. When these applications were being considered by the Central Information Commission, upon learning that the two appeals were pending before the appellate authority of the UPSC, the Central Information Commission directed that the said two appeals be disposed of within a week. Consequent thereupon, the appeals were disposed of by the appellate authority of the UPSC on 20.10.2006 upholding the refusal by the CPIO.