<div align="justify">The Supreme Court has reiterated that personal information of employees cannot be disclosed under the Right to Information Act unless it involved larger public interest. Such a disclosure, instead, would cause unwarranted invasion of privacy.<br /> <br />A bench of Justices R K Agrawal and Abhay Manohar Sapre described an application made by C S Shyam, an employee of Canara Bank at Mallapuram, seeking details like individual staff's date of joining, designation, promotion earned and transfer orders as “wholly misconceived”. <br /> <br />The court noted that the principle of law enunciated in the 'Girish Ramchandra Deshpande vs Central Information Commissioner' (2013) and the 'R K Jain vs the Union of India' (2013) would apply in the case.<br /> <br />“The details disclosed by a person in his income tax returns are “personal information” which stand exempted from disclosure under clause (j) of Section 8(1) of the RTI Act unless involves a larger public interest,” the court had then ruled.<br /> <br />Applying the principle, the bench said the information sought by Shyam of individual employees was personal in nature and secondly, it was exempted from being disclosed. <br /><br />“Neither he disclosed any public interest much less large public interest involved in seeking such information of the individual employees,” the bench said.<br /> <br />His plea was rightly rejected by the Public Information Officer and Chief Public Information Officer of the Bank. It was wrongly allowed by the Central Information Commission and the High Court, the bench said, allowing the Bank's appeal.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="justify">The Supreme Court has reiterated that personal information of employees cannot be disclosed under the Right to Information Act unless it involved larger public interest. Such a disclosure, instead, would cause unwarranted invasion of privacy.<br /> <br />A bench of Justices R K Agrawal and Abhay Manohar Sapre described an application made by C S Shyam, an employee of Canara Bank at Mallapuram, seeking details like individual staff's date of joining, designation, promotion earned and transfer orders as “wholly misconceived”. <br /> <br />The court noted that the principle of law enunciated in the 'Girish Ramchandra Deshpande vs Central Information Commissioner' (2013) and the 'R K Jain vs the Union of India' (2013) would apply in the case.<br /> <br />“The details disclosed by a person in his income tax returns are “personal information” which stand exempted from disclosure under clause (j) of Section 8(1) of the RTI Act unless involves a larger public interest,” the court had then ruled.<br /> <br />Applying the principle, the bench said the information sought by Shyam of individual employees was personal in nature and secondly, it was exempted from being disclosed. <br /><br />“Neither he disclosed any public interest much less large public interest involved in seeking such information of the individual employees,” the bench said.<br /> <br />His plea was rightly rejected by the Public Information Officer and Chief Public Information Officer of the Bank. It was wrongly allowed by the Central Information Commission and the High Court, the bench said, allowing the Bank's appeal.<br /><br /></div>
