In a decision given recently,
the Supreme Court has said that the exam answer sheets of a student
have to be provided to him for inspection if he applies for them under
the Right to Information Act.
In this case, a candidate who had written a CBSE exam was
dissatisfied with the marks he had obtained and had applied for
inspection of his answer sheets under the RTI Act and the CBSE had
rejected his application citing rule 8(1)(e) of the Act which exempts
information held in a fiduciary relationship from mandatory disclosure. A
fiduciary relationship is one in which a person trusts the other person
to exercise a reasonable degree of care. CBSE argued that it holds the
answer sheets in a fiduciary relationship with the examiner and so it
can refuse to divulge that information. The Court did not agree and said
that it is bound to allow RTI applicants to inspect or obtain a copy of
their answer sheets. But the Court admitted that if a disgruntled
examinee comes to know the name of the examiner, he may harm the
examiner. So it said that before giving the answer sheets to the RTI
applicant, information about the examiners should be deleted under
section 8(1)(g) of RTI Act, on the ground that if such information is
disclosed, it may endanger their physical safety.
Sec. 8(3) of the RTI Act says that information relating to any
event or matter which took place 20 years before the RTI application
should be provided. At first sight, it appears that this section makes
it compulsory to preserve all information for 20 years. But the Supreme
Court interpreted it differently in its order. It said that examination
bodies need not keep the answer sheets for 20 years and can make their
own rules about how long they will keep them (for example, CBSE rules
say that answer sheets will be kept for 3 months after the announcing of
results). The RTI applicant has to submit his application for answer
sheets within this time or else RTI Act will not apply.
P.M. Bhat, Mysore Grahakara Parishat