Is Information on application form on priscribed format for a post personal document

[satendra]

A Selection Board in Govt. of India which selects scientists, give marks on research work done, paper published, professions awards, medals, recognitions, M.Sc. Ph.D. PDF and projects handled. Marks given on above aspects counts for 50 % only and rest is given by the interview board. Then the selection is on merit. To fetch the information from applicants Board has a set application Form.
I wanted to have information (ii.e. photocopy of application form ) on application form of a selected candidate, the CPIO denied to spare it by saying I quote

"As the information sought is a "third Party Information" under the RTI act 2005 the scientists concern has been requested to give his consent as to whether he would like to share the requisite information with the applicant"

Is information on priscribed format for a job on which marks are awarded by the selection Board a personal Information?


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[murgie]

Sponsorer

Am neither a lawyer nor an expert on GoI rules. Only an academic. The information you list is what you would expect to see on a scientist's professional CV, which is usually public information at universities (not sure about govt labs). These days simply googling can get one a lot of CVs, so if you know at least something (say, names and affiliations) you may get the information. It will of course not have the same authenticity as the exact information that was provided to the Selection Board.

To examine whether you can build a case under RTI perhaps you should check if (a) there is some other source for the same information, and show that among reasonable possibilities you have found none (b) the selection criteria was meant the pick the best, or just to pick among several who met a threshold (in which case it will be much harder) (c) you can argue that the information you're seeking is what would be contained in a public CV of a scientist, and is not private information (e.g. information about financial records, personal life). Where this last can get tricky is if the form includes both scientist-CV type information, and information about say, family and children. Some of this may be innocuous but its being commingled with purely professional CV info means that some work has to be done to "redact" (blacken or erase) such information.

There may be avenues outside of, or in conjunction with, RTI. In a university environment, I've seen a couple of times when a negative personnel action appears to have been triggered by confidential external recommendation letters. Once such letters were revealed to the grievant, but with names, addresses and affiliations of the letter-writers carefully redacted. In one school, when letters became the issue, a special committee of 2 (one faculty member [from an allowed set] chosen by the faculty member, the other by the university) read the letters and commented on the whether the interpretation of those letters was fair. I don't know whether these suggest other feasible avenues for pursuing an appeal in your setting. Best,

Murgie

[karira]

satendra,

There is a recent decision of the CIC allowing for disclosure (the PA actually withheld information under Section 8(1)(j)....invasion of privacy) of information like educational qualifications, technical qualification, experience certificate of selected candidates.

It might be of help in your case:

http://cic.gov.in/CIC-Orders/Decision_30012008_05.pdf

[meteor]

satendra,

It might be of help in your case:

http://cic.gov.in/CIC-Orders/Decision_30012008_05.pdf

The above pdf contains CPIO's contention that the information cannot be supplied as it is voluminous.

Can any information can be denied because it is voluminous?

[karira]

The above pdf contains CPIO's contention that the information cannot be supplied as it is voluminous.

Can any information can be denied because it is voluminous?

The decision is about allowing disclosure for information that the CPIO said was protected under Section 8(1)(j) as well as definition of privacy. There is no mention of voluminous information.