Assets, liabilities of public servants not exempt under RTI Act: Madras High Court

The Madras High Court recently held that assets and liabilities of public servants are not private and that disclosure of the same in their service registers cannot be completely exempted under Section 8 of the Right to Information (RTI) Act [M Tamilselvan v. The District Collector, Chennai & Ors]..In an order passed on December 20, Justice CV Karthikeyan said that while service registers of public servants might contain some personal information, authorities cannot refuse to divulge all information from such registers.Public servants, the Court said, live under the public glare and cannot restrict other citizens from seeking details of their service records.“The service register of public servant would contain details regarding the date of joining the service, the transfers which the person had suffered, the increments which had been granted, the earned leave which had been availed and also whether any punishments have been inflicted during the period of service. These details particularly the date of joining and the date of attaining the age of superannuation are certainly not private information. The assets and liabilities are again not private. To a little extent, if punishments had been imposed owing to various circumstances, they could be termed as being private as disclosure of the same would put to stigma on the public servant. But once an individual accepts to join public service, he must accept that he lives in public glare and cannot avoid the general public from seeking details at least so far as their service is concerned,” the High Court said..The Court made the observations while hearing a petition filed by one Thamilselvan challenging an order of the Revenue Divisional Officer, Chennai that had rejected his second appeal against the rejection of his application under the RTI Act.The petitioner had filed the RTI application seeking details pertaining to the assets and liabilities an assistant engineer in the Water Reservoir Project Sub-Division, Krishnagiri Taluk.The concerned district collector’s office, however, had refused to divulge the information, claiming that it was private and thus exempt from disclosure under Section 8 of the RTI Act..The petitioner had then filed appeals under Section 19(1) of the Act and subsequently approached the High Court for relief.The assistant engineer concerned had also filed a counter affidavit before the Court opposing the petitioner’s request seeking details of his private information..The Court held that his objections as well as the decision of the district and revenue authorities to not divulge the information under the RTI Act cannot be sustained.“In the instant case, the order impugned only states that the information sought is exempted under Section 8 of the Act as it relates to the personal information of the public servant. I am not able to bring myself to accept that,” the High Court said.The Court accordingly directed the district collector concerned to decide the issue afresh in accordance with the provisions of the RTI Act..Advocate R Thirumoorthy appeared for the petitioner.Senior Advocate C Vigneswaran and government advocate SJ Mohamed Sathik appeared for the district authorities.Advocate J Ramkumar appeared for the assistant engineer..[Read Order]