- (1.)DECISION Wajahat Habibullah, FACTS 1. By an application of 3-7-2006 Amit Gulia of Rohtak, Haryana applied to Shri M.P. Singh, JS, UPSC seeking the following information: So far I have received only a little information in response to an earlier letter that it is not the practice of the Commission to show answer books to the candidates. No further information has been supplied to me. You are, therefore, once again requested to supply me the following information under the RTI Act, 2005 against the fees of Rs. 10/- already sent to you vide DD No. 568358 dated 12.5.2006. (i) Has the aforementioned practice of the commission not been dropped with the enforcement of the RTI Act, 2005 If not, kindly quote the rule under which this exemption is being practiced? (ii) If you don't under the rules, show the answer books to the candidates (which is at least apparently violating the spirit of the RTI Act) do you have the provisions on the payment of some fees to supply the details of the marks obtained by a candidate in every individual question or parts thereof which may help him at least partly to ensure that it was his answer book for which he as been shown to have got marks and that there was no interchange of answer books howsoever inadvertent. If you have such provisions kindly supply me the details of the marks awarded to each question and parts thereof in respect of all the G. S. and Sanskrit papers I had appeared in. If some additional fee has to be paid I may kindly be intimated of it. May I attract your kind attention here to the provisions in the RTI Act that if for certain justifiable reason some information is to be withheld from public, then that part of the information can be supplied which is not prohibited. It is only in view of this that I am asked for the marks of individual questions, which may not create any problem for the commission and yet serve the purpose of the information-seeker in at least partly identifying his answer books. (iii) I hope there is nothing prohibiting the commission from supplying to a candidate a copy of instructions issued by the paper setter/ head examiner to other examiner for securing uniformity of evaluation after the results are out. Kindly supply me a copy of the said instructions in respect of G. S. and Sanskrit papers. In case it is not possible kindly quote the rule under which such information cannot be supplied. In case some fee for the purpose is required to be paid kindly intimate the amount. (iv) Kindly also intimate whether or not rationalization of marks of one subject vis--vis the other subjects is carried out. If it is, could you also supply the formulae? By rationalization is meant here decreasing marks in a subject in which usually candidates get higher marks, and increasing marks in a subject in which usually candidates get lower marks.
(2.)To this he received a response on 19-9-06 from Shri M.P. Singh citing a decision of this Commission of 25-8-06 refusing the request for showing the answer books but stated in response to point No.3 of the application that "the answer books are retained by the Commission as per prescribed record retention schedule and are destroyed thereafter".
Not satisfied with the reply Amit Gulia moved his first appeal before the Addl. Secretary Shri Biresh Kumar emphasizing the following points: I would, therefore, stress once again that my request to the commission has been only to allow me to identify my answer books only to the extent that it were my answer books and that every question was evaluated. 1 I also stress that I am not at all insistent that I should be allowed to question the awards even if a question deserving full marks has been given 5% marks.

(3.)UPON this Shri Biresh Kumar made the following order dated 2 -11-06: I find that CPIO's reply dated 19.9.2006 to the appellant is not only categorical but also is self-explanatory. The grounds quoted either for refusal of information or arguments relating of preservation of answer books have been clearly stated to the appellant. What the appellant is trying to raise through the instant appeal, I am afraid, is nothing but a figment of his imagination and he is trying to raise the same issue i.e. access to his answer-sheet in some form or the other. No doubt, he is entitled to express his views, but the fact of the matter is and remains and as CPIO has clearly stated in his reply that the answer sheets cannot be shown to the appellant in terms of Central Information Commission's decision No. 207/IC (A)/2006 dated 25.8.2006 __________. In another Appeal No. ICPB/A-2/CIC/2006 decided by the Central Information Commission on 6th February, 2006 in the case of Ms. Treesa Irish, the Central Information Commission have held therein that when a candidate seeks for a copy of the evaluated answer paper, either of his/her own or others, it is purely a personal information, the disclosure of which has no relation to any public interest or activity and this was found to have been covered under Section 8 (1) (j) of the Act. Hence denial of information by the CPIO appears to be justified.