Appeal Dismissed: Publicly Disclosed Information Not Accessible under RTI Act

The appeal against the CPIO order concerning an RTI request for recruitment examination information was disposed of. The appellant sought details about marks and cut-off marks for a grade-A officer recruitment exam in 2018. It was revealed that the information was already public on the IBBI website. The FAA determined that once information is public, it is not considered under the public authority's control, making it inaccessible under the RTI Act. Citing precedent, the FAA concluded that voluntarily disclosed information falls outside the RTI Act's scope, leading to the appeal's dismissal.

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Issues:
- Appeal against CPIO order regarding RTI request for recruitment examination information.

Analysis:
The judgment involves an appeal against an order of the Central Public Information Officer (CPIO) of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI) regarding a Right to Information (RTI) request made by the appellant, seeking information related to the recruitment examination for the officer's grade-A in the year 2018. The appellant specifically requested information on the marks obtained by them and the cut-off marks of the written test. Upon examination, it was found that the information sought by the appellant had already been made available in the public domain on the IBBI website, www.ibbi.gov.in. The First Appellate Authority (FAA) noted that once information is in the public domain, it cannot be considered as being 'held' or 'under the control of' the public authority, and therefore, it ceases to be accessible under the RTI Act. The FAA referenced a previous case to support this conclusion, highlighting that voluntarily disseminated information is excluded from the purview of the RTI Act, which aims to minimize the reliance on the Act. Consequently, the appeal was disposed of in light of the information's availability in the public domain, rendering it beyond the scope of the RTI Act.

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