Provide Students with their Answer Sheets under RTI: Supreme Court
The Supreme Court on 9th August gave its green signal, under the Right to 
Information Act, wherein students can inspect and photocopy their answer sheets in any educational or professional examination. This ruling will be binding on any agency conducting the examination in India. The ruling was given by a Bench of Justices R.V. Raveendran and A.K. Patnaik, which upheld a Calcutta High Court order.
As per the bench, the evaluated scripts will come under the definition of ‘information' and reiterated the duty of the public authority to allow maximum disclosure as envisaged by the RTI. Explaining the scope of the ‘fiduciary relationship' of the agency holding the examination, the Bench held that bodies conducting examinations could not retain evaluated answer sheets in any fiduciary (held in trust) capacity and contend that they would not disclose the same.
The exemption under Section 8 (1) of the RTI Act would not apply to disclosure of answer sheets. The Bench was disposing of appeals filed by the Central Board of Secondary Education, the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education, the West Bengal Council for Higher Education, the University of Calcutta, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India, the West Bengal Central School Service Commission and the Assam Public Service Commission.
The Human Rights Law Network (HRLN) filed an intervention application, on behalf of the applicants, the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS) and Join Operation for Social Help (JOSH). They defended that such disclosure would show an overnight rise in information-seekers and the magnitude of such demands might be overwhelming. They also argued that if answer scripts will be made available to each examinee, it might lead to an uncontrolled situation.
However, the apex body, the Supreme Court, rejected these arguments. Welcoming the judgment, the National Campaign for People's Right to Information, said ‘The NCPRI believes this ruling would positively affect the transparency rights of lakhs of students of all kinds across the country including examinations conducted by school boards, universities and public service commissions.'
This ruling would also help bring about much needed reform in the examination system, the NCPRI said in a statement.
Source: Prachi Srivastava (Shiksha Team)
Date: 10th August, 2011
