Early Times Report
Jammu, Jan 27: The State Information Commission (SIC) has directed the District Rural Development Agency (DRDA) Samba to provide certified copies of the degree / academic qualification certificates of an Executive Engineer (XEn) who works with Rural Engineering Wing (REW) to an RTI information seeker.
The said certificates were earlier not provided by the PIO to the information seeker after which he filed an appeal before SIC.
Details available with Early Times reveal that one Parvez Shera a resident of Channi Himmat, Jammu filed second appeal before the State Information Commission (SIC) against the PIO, REW, Udhampur, PIO, REW, Samba, Project Director, District Rural Development Agency (DRDA), Udhampur and the Project Director, DRDA, Samba wherein he stated that he filed an application through speed-post on 12.06.2015 before PIO, REW, Udhampur with the request to provide Service Book of Bashir Ahmed Sheikh, the then Executive Engineer, Rural Engineering Wing, Udhampur and also academic/professional qualification certificates of the official, which he had submitted at the time of appointment and thereafter.
SIC in its order ruled "Through his RTI application, the appellant has sought Service Book of Bashir Ahmed Sheikh, Executive Engineer and his academic/professional qualification certificates. Although the PIO has already provided copy of Service Book to the appellant, yet the Commission has taken a consistent stand in its earlier judgments that Service Book record is a matter between employee and the employer and hence cannot be disclosed under the J&K RTI Act, 2009 unless larger public interest warrants disclosure of such information.
Accordingly Project Officer, DRDA, Samba is directed to obtain copy of academic/professional qualification certificates from the concerned i.e. Bashir Ahmed Sheikh, Executive Engineer and provide it to the appellant within 02 weeks. The Executive Engineer agreed before the Commission that copies of these documents are available with him in his personal records.
The appellant, to whom the notice was sent by hand, didn't appear before the Commission. In view of the above, the appeal filed before the Commission is disposed of with the directions to PIO/DRDA, Samba to forward the copies of academic/professional qualification certificates of Sh. Bashir Ahmed Sheikh, Executive Engineer to the appellant within 02 weeks from the date of receipt of this order". |
