Residential address, father’s name is personal information under RTI

Section 8(1) (j) of the RTI Act, 2005 exempts disclosure of personal information, entitling the CPIO to withhold information of a personal nature, unless there is larger public interest in disclosure of such information. ‘Personal information’ however, is not defined in the RTI Act and the decision of whether the information sought is personal or not has been left to the wisdom of the CPIO. The RTI applicant too is often unaware, whether the information sought by him is personal or not. In such a situation, it is important to become acquainted with the Court decisions which have laid to rest any speculation on whether a particular information is personal or not.

In a recent Delhi High Court case[1], where, the RTI applicant requested for the following information from the CPIO/President’s Secretariat:

“6. Kindly provide complete residential address and their father’s name of all selected candidates who have been
appointed to the post of Multi Tasking Staff, Notification Circular No. A-35011/7/16-Admn.”

The division bench of Delhi High Court, held that the residential address and father’s name is personal to the candidates and an invasion to their privacy. It cannot be disclosed under the RTI Act.

With respect to the contention of the applicant that the information sought was not personal information but was already in public domain. A committee was constituted to look into the complaints questioning the recruitment and Committee’s report clearly evidenced that 10 candidates had been recruited on the basis of fake certificates. There was a recruitment scam, therefore seeking the parentage and address of the candidates was an information touching upon public interest. There is no invasion of privacy, as, matters relating to adopting unfair means in public recruitment cannot be termed as ‘personal matters’, the court was of the view that even assuming that there was irregularity or anamoly in the recruitment process, it did not justify seeking personal details of the selected candidates. No larger public interest justifies the disclosure of residential address and father’s names of the selected candidates. The Court observed that the RTI Applicant had not placed any material on record to establish and substantiate that the personal information had any element of public element or interest.

1.Harkishan Vs. President Secretariat through its Secretary & Anr, LPA 90/2021 & CM APPL. 8367/2021 dated 26.7.2021.