Assets and service record details should be under RTI: Panel

A majority of the three-member-panel discussing the idea "Samvad on Privacy vs Right to Information Act", concurred that details of assets and service record of public servants should be provided to applicants under RTI. They were speaking at the Bombay Chartered Accountants' Society at Churchgate.

Among the speakers were Justice Abhay Thipsay, former judge of the Bombay High Court, V A Thorat, former advocate general and Shailesh Gandhi, former central information commissioner.

Justice Thipsay said, "When it comes to assets and service records of public servants, I believe they should be provided under the RTI Act." Gandhi had cited that increasingly some Supreme Court judgments were being cited to call every information as private and having no public interest and thus being denied. Among these are details related to service records and those shared by officers were termed as confidential between the employer and the employee and therefore, denied under RTI often citing SC judgments.

"There is a provision under the RTI Act that what cannot be denied to the Parliament or the State Assembly, cannot be denied under RTI. This provision has been completely ignored and the information is often denied," said Gandhi. Thorat said that information should be given on case-to-case basis when it comes to assets and details of service records.

He added, "Even if the provision exists, it does not mean that the Parliament or Assembly can call for all information available in public domain. What information has to be given will have to be seen as per Article 19 (2)."

"Constitution is sovereign and not the provision of a legislation," said Thipsay. The speakers disagreed with Gandhi who felt that a clash of sorts is being made created between privacy and right to information to deny latter. "They do exist but, have to be harmonised," said Thipsay.

"Basically there is a huge debate going on between RTI and privacy. There are various decisions which are bringing the conflict between a person's right to information as against another person's right to privacy to the fore. We organised this event to discuss that," said Sunil Gabhawalla, president of BCAS.