Uttarakhand HC asks Centre to share empanelment records of IFoS officer Sanjiv Chaturvedi

New Delhi, Sep 5 (PTI) The Uttarakhand High Court has asked the Centre to share records relating to the process and decision making of the empanelment of Indian Forest Service (IFoS) officer Sanjiv Chaturvedi at the level of the joint secretary.

As per existing practice, officers concerned are conveyed the decision on their empanelment and no documents or any records, especially in case of their rejection, are provided.

The court’s decision came while hearing a plea filed by Chaturvedi, a 2002-batch IFoS officer of the Uttarakhand cadre.

“…Keeping in view that the petitioner has sought his own record, a direction is being given to the respondents to give the record relating to the process and decision making of the empanelment of the petitioner at the level of the Joint Secretary, who took the decision on 15.11.2022,” said the order dated September 3 by the high court bench comprising Chief Justice Ritu Bahri and Justice Alok Kumar Verma.

It is being clarified that only the records relating to the petitioner’s empanelment shall be supplied to the petitioner, the order further said.

The Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, vide its communication dated November 15, 2022, to the Uttarakhand government, had said that “the Appointment Committee of Cabinet (ACC) has not approved” Chaturvedi’s empanelment for “holding the post of JS/equivalent at the Centre”.

Aggrieved over the decision, Chaturvedi had submitted representation to the Centre and had sought documents/material grounds for rejections of his empanelment, so as to enable him to properly represent against the rejection order.

He had also filed an application under the Right to Information (RTI) Act seeking relevant documents and other details related to his non-empanelment.

In response to his RTI application, the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) declined to share details/relevant records citing Section 8(1)(i) of RTI Act, 2005.

The RTI Act section bars disclosure of “cabinet papers including records of deliberations of the Council of Ministers, Secretaries and other officers”.

It, however, further says, “Provided once the decisions of Council of Ministers, the reasons thereof, and the material on the basis of which the decisions were taken shall be made public after the decision has been taken, and the matter is complete, or over”.

Chaturvedi moved the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) in December 2022. His petition was dismissed in May this year on the ground that the disclosure of the records pertaining to ACC and the Civil Services Board (CSB) being confidential documents is prohibited as per Section 8(1)(i) of RTI Act.

He had challenged CAT’s order before the Uttarakhand High Court in June, claiming that the tribunal’s order has been passed on the basis of prima facie baseless, fictitious, factually incorrect and unsubstantiated submissions made by central government.

The DoPT had last year also filed a counter-affidavit before the Nainital circuit bench of the CAT in Chaturvedi’s case to say that there is no 360 degree system for the civil servants.