In a landmark judgment, the Supreme Court on Thursday held that the state public service commissions are bound to furnish details of answer sheets and interview marks of the candidates appearing in va
In a landmark judgment, the Supreme Court on Thursday held that the state public service commissions are bound to furnish details of answer sheets and interview marks of the candidates appearing in various examinations conducted by them under the Right to Information Act.
Giving this ruling, a bench of Justices M.Y. Eqbal and Arun Mishra, however, held that the public service commission is not entitled to furnish to the candidates the names of the examiners as such a disclosure will not be in public interest.
In the present case, the Kerala state information commission and the high court directed that the request of the information seeker about the information of his answer sheets and details of the interview marks, as well as the names of examiners, should be provided to him. The Kerala state public service commission assailed this order on appeal. Partly allowing the appeal, the bench said, “Answer sheet is not something which a public authority keeps under a fiduciary capacity.
Even disclosing the marks and the answer sheets to the candidates will ensure that the candidates have been given marks according to their performance in the exam. This practice will ensure a fair play in this competitive environment, where a candidate puts his time in preparing for the competitive exams.”
The bench said, “So far as the information sought for by the respondents with regard to the supply of scanned copies of his answer sheet of the written test, copy of the tabulation sheet and other information, we are of the opinion that the view taken in the impugned judgment with regard to the disclosure of these information, do not suffer from error of law and the same is fully justified.”
But the bench said that the request of the information seeker about the details of the person who had examined the paper cannot be provided to the information seeker as the relationship between the public authority, i.e. service commission, and the examiners is totally within fiduciary relationship.
The bench said, “We do not find any substance in the reasoning given by the Kerala HC on the question of disclosure of names of the examiners.”
Writing the judgment, Justice Eqbal said, “We do not find any substance in the reasoning given by the Kerala high court on the question of disclosure of names of the examiners. We would like to point out that the disclosure of the identity of examiners is in the least interest of the general public and also any attempt to reveal the examiner’s identity will give rise to dire consequences. Therefore, in our considered opinion, revealing examiner’s identity will only lead to confusion and public unrest. If we allow disclosing name of the examiners in every exam, the unsuccessful candidates may try to take revenge from the examiners for doing their job properly. This may, further, create a situation where the potential candidates in the next similar exam, especially in the same state or in the same level will try to contact the disclosed examiners for any potential gain by illegal means in the potential exam.”
The bench said, “We do not find any substance in the reasoning given by the Kerala high court on the question of disclosure of names of the examiners.”
