The Bombay High Court, in a significant judgment on Monday, declared that marks obtained by candidates in public recruitment tests are not private information and should be disclosed under the Right to Information (RTI) Act. This ruling came in response to a petition filed by Onkar Kalmankar, who sought the scores of candidates who appeared for the 2018 junior clerk tests in the Pune district court.
Justices M S Sonak and Jitendra Jain presided over the case, emphasizing the necessity of transparency in public recruitment processes. They remarked that withholding such information could lead to doubts and mistrust in the system, which is counterproductive to the principles of transparency and accountability in public service.
The court directed the concerned authorities to provide the petitioner with the marks of the selected candidates for the positions involving a written test, Marathi and English typing tests, and interviews, within six weeks. The bench noted that public recruitment, being a process initiated through public advertisements, should inherently uphold the principles of openness and fairness.
Furthermore, the court clarified that the provisions of the RTI Act exempt only such personal information which has no relevance to public activities or interests. In the context of recruitment for public posts, disclosing candidates’ marks is unlikely to infringe on privacy rights unjustifiably.
