The Karnataka High Court at Bengaluru Bench has held that assets and liabilities statements of a public servant ordinarily constitute “personal information” within the meaning of Section 8(1)(j) of the Right to Information Act, 2005, and the mere fact that such information is furnished under service rules or to a public authority does not, by itself, make it publicly disclosable under the RTI Act. Disclosure can be directed only where the applicant establishes an overriding or larger public interest sufficient to outweigh the privacy interests protected by Section 8(1)(j).
The Court clarified that a private dispute or private litigation interest, even if founded on allegations of fraud, does not amount to such larger public interest. Accordingly, it held that the information sought by the petitioner squarely fell within the ambit of personal information protected under Section 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act and that the petitioner had failed to establish any overriding or larger public interest warranting disclosure. It therefore found no infirmity, illegality, arbitrariness, perversity, or jurisdictional error in the orders of the Public Information Officer and the Karnataka Information Commission.
A Single Judge Bench of Justice Suraj Govindaraj observed that Section 8(1) of the RTI Act operates notwithstanding the general right of access to information under the Act, and that clause (j) specifically exempts personal information where disclosure has no relationship to any public activity or public interest, or would cause an unwarranted invasion of privacy, unless larger public interest justifies disclosure. The Bench identified the ingredients of clause (j) as: the information must be personal information relating to an individual; its disclosure must have no relationship to any public activity or public interest; and/or its disclosure must result in an unwarranted invasion of privacy. Once these conditions are satisfied, disclosure cannot ordinarily be directed unless overriding larger public interest is established by the applicant.
The Bench further observed that the assets and liabilities statement of Sri S.P. Jayapal was not information relating to the functioning of the public authority, discharge of official duties, governmental decision-making, utilisation of public funds, or performance of any statutory function, but instead related to the personal assets and liabilities of an individual holding a public post. It held that merely because a person is a public servant, every piece of information concerning him does not become amenable to disclosure under the RTI Act, and public servants do not cease to possess privacy rights merely by reason of their employment in public service. The Bench also distinguished between information furnished to a competent authority for administrative, vigilance, regulatory, or service-related purposes and information liable to be disclosed to the public at large.
The Bench also observed that the petitioner was seeking disclosure in aid of a private property dispute and that the purpose of the request was directly connected with assertion and enforcement of private rights between identifiable individuals. It held that mere allegations, however serious, cannot by themselves convert personal information into public information, and that a private interest, however bona fide, is not synonymous with public interest. The expression “larger public interest” requires something that transcends the concerns of the individual applicant and bears a nexus to the welfare of the public at large or a substantial section thereof. In the present case, the petitioner had not placed any material to establish that disclosure was required for exposing corruption, misuse of public office, diversion of public funds, disproportionate acquisition of assets, or any issue affecting the public at large.
Briefly, the petitioner sought a writ of certiorari to quash the order passed by the Karnataka Information Commission and also sought a direction to the Public Information Officer to furnish the assets and liability statements for the years 1997–2005 of one S.P. Jayapal, who had worked as Deputy Controller at KSRTC’s Central Office, Bengaluru during 1990–2002. The petitioner’s case was that S.P. Jayapal had fraudulently obtained a sale deed in respect of the petitioner’s property, that civil suits were pending in relation to that dispute, and that the requested documents were required by the petitioner for that purpose. The request for information had been rejected by the Public Information Officer under Section 8(1)(j) of the Right to Information Act, 2005 on the ground that it concerned personal information, and that rejection was upheld by the Karnataka Information Commission.
