The Uttarakhand High Court has requested the Center to disclose records related to the process and decision-making of the empanelment of Indian Forest Service (IFoS) officer Sanjiv Chaturvedi at the joint secretary level.
According to the current protocol, the decision on empanelment is communicated to the officers involved, and no documents or records are provided, particularly in cases of rejection.
The court's ruling was made during the hearing of a petition filed by Chaturvedi, who is 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.
The order further clarified that only the records relating to the petitioner’s empanelment shall be supplied to the petitioner.
The Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, vide its communication dated November 15, 2022, to the Uttarakhand government, said that "the Appointment Committee of Cabinet (ACC) has not approved Chaturvedi's empanelment for holding the post of JS/equivalent at the Centre."
Chaturvedi was upset about the decision and had submitted a request to the Centre, asking for the reasons for rejecting his empanelment so that he could respond appropriately. He had also used the Right to Information (RTI) Act to request documents and information related to his non-empanelment.
The Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) refused to share the relevant records in response to his RTI application, citing Section 8(1)(i) of the 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 lodged a petition with the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) in December 2022. In May of this year, his petition was rejected on the basis that the disclosure of ACC and Civil Services Board (CSB) records is prohibited as per Section 8(1)(i) of the RTI Act.
In June, he contested the CAT's decision at the Uttarakhand High Court, arguing that the tribunal's ruling was based on unfounded, fictional, factually inaccurate, and unsubstantiated claims made by the central government.
In Chaturvedi's case, the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) also submitted a counter-affidavit to the Nainital circuit bench of the CAT last year, stating that there is no 360-degree system for civil servants.
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