How an employee performs at an organisation is an issue between the employee and his/her employer. It is personal information that cannot be revealed under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, observed the Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh High Court (JKL HC).
The bench comprised Justices Tashi Rabstan and Sindhu Sharma, who went on to declare that such information has nothing to do with any public activity or public interest, and that disclosing it would amount to “unwarranted invasion of privacy of that individual”.
This observation was made when Pushpa Devi filed two applications seeking details of the complaints filed against Vijay Kumar, principal of Kendriya Vidyalay, Chamba since the time of his joining. She had sought the information from the public information officer, who refused to give it to her saying it was personal information, and as per the RTI Act, such information cannot be disclosed. This led to Pushpa Devi approaching the Central Information Commission which ordered the public information officer to give all the details sought by Pushpa Devi.
The JKL HC, however, declared that the information sought by Pushpa Devi clearly fell under ‘personal information’ as per Section 8(1)(j) of the Right to Information Act, 2005, and therefore, cannot be disclosed.
A similar matter had been dealt with in the past said the bench, referring to the Supreme Court ruling in Girish Ramchandra Deshpande vs Central Information Commr.
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