Plea to make officials’ appraisal reports public

NEW DELHI — The performance appraisal reports of government staffers, officially known as the Annual Confidential Report (ACR), may not be confidential anymore, with a petition before the Delhi High Court seeking to make them available under the RTI Act in "public interest".

The petitioner — RTI activist R K Jain — has raised the question whether performance appraisal reports of a government employee relating to his public duty can be termed as his “personal information” and if their disclosure will infringe on his privacy.

According to a circular issued by the Ministry of Personnel and Public Grievances in 2007, "an ACR contains information about the character, capability and other attributes of the officials, disclosures of which to any other person would cause unwarranted invasion of privacy".

ACRS are the basis for the officials' increments are based. Officials are rated “extraordinary/very good/good/poor”. In order to be promoted, the assessee would have to earn an “extraordinary” or “very good” thrice.

Stating that under Section 8(1)(j) of Right to Information (RTI) Act, only personal information is exempted from public disclosure, the petitioner argued that ACRS do not come under this category.

A single bench judge of the Delhi High Court had in December 2011 dismissed the petition and held that ACRS are the personal information of the public servant concerned. The petitioner, who is also the editor of the Excise Law Times, challenged the order, adding that “larger public interest warrants disclosure of all ACRS, when required”.

Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for the petitioner, argued: “The ACRS contain no personal information of the officer concerned, except date of birth, date of joining government, employment code, job qualifications and courses attended during the period which is merely routine data”.