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Judgment
Justice T.R. Ramachandran Nair
The petitioner was a candidate who appeared with Roll No. 092645 in the Civil Service Main examination held by the Union Public Service Commission in 2009. This writ petition is filed by the petitioner challenging the orders by which the information sought in respect of three items were denied and the appeal was also rejected. Learned counsel for the petitioner submitted that in the light of the decision of the Apex Court in Central Board of Secondary Education v. Adiya Bandopadhyay (2011 (3) KLT SN 117 (C. No. 120) SC) there cannot be any objection in allowing an opportunity to the petitioner to verify the valued answer sheets in respect of the written examination undertaken by the petitioner in different papers.
Heard learned counsel appearing for the respondents who submitted that actually the petitioner had demanded information regarding three matters: (a) marklist; (b) details of the valuers; and (c) information regarding evaluated answer book. It is submitted that the objection stated by the respondents are really valid in the light of the provisions of the Act.
In Adiya Bandopadhyay''s case (supra) the Apex Court, while considering the definition of ''information'', held as follows:
The definition of ''information'' in S.2(f) of the R.T.I. Act refers to any material in any form which includes records, documents, opinions, papers among several other enumerated items. The term ''record'' is defined in S.2(i) of the said Act as including any document, manuscript or file among others. When a candidate participates in an examination and writes his answers in an answer-book and submits it to the examining body for evaluation and declaration of the result, the answer-book is a document or record. When the answer-book is evaluated by an examiner appointed by the examining body, the evaluated answer-book becomes a record containing the ''opinion'' of the examiner. Therefore, the evaluated answer-book is also an ''information'' under the R.T.I. Act.
Going by the above decision, once the answer book is evaluated by an examiner, it becomes a record containing his opinion and consequently it will be an information under the Act. In that view of the matter, the petitioner is entitled to succeed in that respect and the writ petition is allowed to that extent. There will be a direction to the competent authority of the Union Public Service Commission to provide facility to the petitioner to verify the valued answer papers and appropriate communication will be issued in this regard to the petitioner within a period of four weeks from the date of receipt of a copy of this judgment. The petitioner will be informed about the venue as well as the time of inspection sufficiently in advance. No costs.