Information regarding transfer, posting of clerical staff of bank exempt from disclosure under RTI Act, SC

The Supreme Court has held that information regarding transfer and posting of the clerical staff of nationalized bank is personal in nature and exempt under Section 8(j) of the Act from disclosure..A Bench of Justices RK Agrawal and AM Sapre set aside a judgment of the Kerala High Court and allowed the appeal filed by Canara Bank..The cases stems from an RTI application filed by one CS Shyam, a clerical staff at Canara Bank’s branch in Malappuram district of Kerala. Shaym had sought information regarding transfer and posting of the entire clerical staff from 01.01.2002 to 31.07.2006 in all the branches of Canara Bank. This information was in relation to the personal details of individual employee such as the date of his/her joining, designation, details of promotion earned, date of his/her joining to the Branch where he/she is posted, the authorities who issued the transfer orders etc..The information sought was rejected by the Public Information Officer and by the Chief Public Information Officer. Both cited the reason that the information sought was protected from disclosure under section 8(j) of the Act..The Central Information Commission however allowed the appeal and directed the bank to furnish the information sought. The bank then filed a writ petition against the CIC order before the Kerala High Court. The same was rejected both by a single judge and Division Bench of the High Court. This led to the appeal before the Supreme Court..The Supreme Court held that the question has already been settled in two decisions of Supreme Court in Girish Ramchandra Deshpande vs. Central Information Commissioner & Ors., [(2013) 1 SCC 212] and R.K. Jain vs. Union of India & Anr., [(2013) 14 SCC 794]..Relying on the aforesaid decisions, the Court held that the information sought was personal in nature and was exempted under section 8(j) of the RTI Act. Further, the Court held that the information sought did not involve any issue that affects public interest..“…firstly, the information sought by respondent No.1 of individual employees working in the Bank was personal in nature; secondly, it was exempted from being disclosed under Section 8(j) of the Act and lastly, neither respondent No.1 disclosed any public interest much less larger public interest involved in seeking such information of the individual employee and nor any finding was recorded by the Central Information Commission and the High Court as to the involvement of any larger public interest in supplying such information to respondent No.1.”.While allowing the appeal the bench held,.“….that the application made by respondent No.1under Section 6 of the Act was wholly misconceived and was, therefore, rightly rejected by the Public Information Officer and Chief Public Information Officer whereas wrongly allowed by the Central Information Commission and the High Court.”.Read the judgment below.