Chandigarh News: No ACRs To Third Perosn – Info Panel
CHANDIGARH: Terming information in an employee’s annual confidential report (ACR) of being of “personnal” nature, the State Information Commission has ruled that ACRs cannot be supplied to a third person unless “public interest involved outweighed the privacy of the individual concerned”.
A Division Bench of Chief Information Commissioner R.K.Gupta recently concluded that ACRs these dayd did not merely contain comments on performance but might include personal date pertaining to health, family and related issues.
The Bench was deciding on the issue on Markfed Superintendent S.K.Goel’s complaint against chief auditor of cooperative societies on denial to provide copies of ACRs of his colleagues.
The Commission said that an ACR was information within the ambit of section 2 (f) of RTi Act. “This information is also ‘held’ by public authority and therefore copies of ACRs are in public domain. These will normally be available on asking, unless it can be denied under exemptions listed in sections 8 and 9 of the Act. Seeking ACRs of another officer will also amount to a third party information under section 11 of the Act,” the order said.
“The law is well settled that an employee can obtain a copy of his own ACR. The issue, however, is whether another person can seek copies of ACRs of a government employee under RTi,” the Bench mentioned.
“In fact, ACRs of All India Services now mandatorily contain a detailed report on health of the individual . The information is also of personal nature. Therefore, unless it is in public interest to disclose ACRs and the public interest outweighs privacy of the individual concerned, these documents cannot be supplied to a third person, unless first the requirements of section 11 of the Act are met,” the order said.
The Bench said that due opportunity should be afforded to the officer concerned (being third party) to make his submission against such disclosure.
This is to mention here that the Punjab State Information Commission had in a landmark verdict over two years ago upheld the right of an employee to have access to his or her ACR while rejecting the state government’s submission that the ACR was sacrosanct.
SOURCE-HT