CENTRE OF EARTH SCIENCE STUDIES Vs. ANSON SEBASTIAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellant is a State Government agency engaged in studies on earth science. The first respondent, a Scientist working with the appellant applied to the Information Officer of the appellant for getting information pertaining to certain documents relating to domestic enquiry against another employee and also for getting entries in the Confidential Reports of six other employees of the appellant. However, the Information Officer rejected the first respondent's application. Consequent upon which the first respondent filed appeals against the orders of the Information Officer before the State Information Commission, which allowed the appeals directing the appellant to give all the details and copies of documents asked for by the first respondent. The appellant filed various Writ Petitions challenging the orders of the State Information Commission, which were rejected by the learned Single Judge. Even though five Writ Petitions were filed by the appellant before the learned Single Judge, all were dismissed by a common judgment. Though appeals were filed against all the Writ Petitions, two of the Writ Appeals were withdrawn by the appellant. The above are the remaining three cases of which two are against the orders of the learned Single Judge upholding State Information Commission's direction to give copies of Confidential Reports in respect of six Scientists of the appellant and in the third appeal challenge is against direction to give copies of certain documents in domestic enquiry proceedings conducted by the appellant in respect of one of it's employees. We have heard counsel appearing for the appellant, Standing Counsel appearing for the State Information Commission and counsel appearing for the first respondent in all the appeals.

(2.) While counsel for the appellant has claimed immunity based on Section 8(1)(e) and 8(1)(j) of the Right to Information Act, 2005 and relied on judgment of this Court in Public Information Officer and Anr. v. State Information Commission and Anr. in W.P.(C) No. 9445/2009 dated 28.10.2009, 2010(1) KLT 69 (C. No. 82), counsel appearing for respondents relied on decision of the Calcutta High Court in University of Calcutta v. Pritam Rooj, 2009 AIR(Cal) 97 and a Division Bench judgment of this Court in V.S. Lee v. State of Kerala and Ors. in W.A. No. 1990/2007 in support of their contentions. It is a settled position particularly by virtue of the Division Bench judgment of this Court that the provisions of the Right to Information Act should be given a liberal construction and, therefore, what is to be considered is whether the immunity or exemption claimed by the appellant under Section 8(1)(e) and 8(1)(j) of the Act is tenable. For easy reference, the said Section is extracted hereunder:

(3.) We are of the view that Section 8(1)(e) has no application because it deals with information available with the person in his fiduciary relationship with another. Information under this head is nothing but information in trust which but for the relationship would not have been conveyed or known to the person concerned. This applies to the relationship that exists between a patient and a Doctor, a lawyer and a client etc. We do not find any application of this provision in relation to the information sought by an employee about other co-employees of the same employer. Therefore, the claim of immunity by the appellant under Section 8(1)(e) , in our view, was rightly rejected by the learned Single Judge and we, therefore, uphold the finding of the learned Single Judge.