Inst.Of Chartered Accountants Of India vs Shaunak H Sayta & Ors

2. The appellant Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (for short `ICAI') is a body corporate established under section 3 of the Chartered Accountants Act, 1949. One of the functions of the appellant council is to conduct the examination of candidates for enrolment as Chartered Accountants. The first respondent appeared in the Chartered Accountants' final examination conducted by ICAI in November, 2007. The results were declared in January 2008. The first respondent who was not successful in the examination applied for verification of marks. The appellant carried out the verification in accordance with the provisions of the Chartered Accountants 2 Regulations, 1988 and found that there was no discrepancy in evaluation of answerscripts. The appellant informed the first respondent accordingly.

4. The appellant by its reply dated 22.2.2008 gave the following responses/information in response to the 13 queries :

The process of verification starts after declaration of result and each request is processed on first come first served basis. The verification of the answer books, as requested, is done by two independent persons separately and then, reviewed by an Officer of the Institute and upon his satisfaction, the letter informing the outcome of the verification exercise is issued after the comprehensive check has been satisfactorily completed.

5. Not being satisfied with the same, the respondent filed an appeal before the appellate authority. The appellate authority dismissed the appeal, by order dated 10.4.2008, concurring with the order of the Chief Public Information Officer of the appellant. The first respondent thereafter filed a second appeal before the Central Information Commission (for short `CIC') in regard to queries (1) to (5) and (7) to (13). CIC by order dated 23.12.2008 rejected the appeal in regard to queries 3, 5 and 13 (as also Query 2) while directing the disclosure of information in regard to the other questions. We extract below the reasoning given by the CIC to refuse disclosure in regard to queries 3,5 and 13.

(iv) integrated professional competence examination; (v) final examination; and (vi) post qualification course examinations. A person is enrolled as a Chartered Accountant only after passing the common proficiency test, 8 professional educational examination-II/professional competence examination and final examination. The number of candidates who applied for various examinations conducted by ICAI were 2.03 lakhs in 2006, 4.16 lakhs in 2007; 3.97 lakh candidates in 2008 and 4.20 lakhs candidates in 2009. ICAI conducts the examinations in about 343 centres spread over 147 cities throughout the country and abroad. The appellant claims to follow the following elaborate system with established procedures in connection with its examinations, taking utmost care with regard to valuation of answer sheets and preparation of results and also in carrying out verification in case a student applies for the same in accordance with the following Regulations:

12. Information can be sought under the RTI Act at different stages or different points of time. What is exempted from disclosure at one point of time may cease to be exempted at a later point of time, depending upon the 13 nature of exemption. For example, any information which is exempted from disclosure under section 8, is liable to be disclosed if the application is made in regard to the occurrence or event which took place or occurred or happened twenty years prior to the date of the request, vide section 8(3) of the RTI Act. In other words, information which was exempted from disclosure, if an application is made within twenty years of the occurrence, may not be exempted if the application is made after twenty years. Similarly, if information relating to the intellectual property, that is the question papers, solutions/model answers and instructions, in regard to any particular examination conducted by the appellant cannot be disclosed before the examination is held, as it would harm the competitive position of innumerable third parties who are taking the said examination. Therefore it is obvious that the appellant examining body is not liable to give to any citizen any information relating to question papers, solutions/model answers and instructions relating to a particular examination before the date of such examination. But the position will be different once the examination is held. Disclosure of the question papers, model answers and instructions in regard to any particular examination, would not harm the competitive position of any third party once the examination is held. In fact the question papers are disclosed to everyone at the time of examination. The appellant 14 voluntarily publishes the "suggested answers" in regard to the question papers in the form of a book for sale every year, after the examination. Therefore section 8(1)(d) of the RTI Act does not bar or prohibit the disclosure of question papers, model answers (solutions to questions) and instructions if any given to the examiners and moderators after the examination and after the evaluation of answerscripts is completed, as at that stage they will not harm the competitive position of any third party. We therefore reject the contention of the appellant that if an information is exempt at any given point of time, it continues to be exempt for all time to come.

Re : Question (iv)

(ii) of first respondent's query (13).

As the information sought under parts (i), (iii) and (v) of query (13) are not maintained and is not available in the form of data with the appellant in its records, ICAI is not bound to furnish the same.

General submissions of ICAI

27. In view of the above, this appeal is allowed in part and the order of the High Court is set aside and the order of the CIC is restored, subject to one modification in regard to query (13): ICAI to disclose to the first respondent, the standard criteria, if any, relating to moderation, employed by it, for the purpose of making revisions under Regulation 39(2).