In a landmark judgment, the Supreme Court held that the state public service commissions are bound to furnish details of answer sheets and interview marks of the candidates appearing in various examinations conducted by them under the Right to Information Act. Giving this ruling, a bench of Justices M.Y. Eqbal and Arun Mishra, however, held that the public service commission is not entitled to furnish to the candidates the names of the examiners as such a disclosure will not be in public interest.

In the present case, the Kerala state information commission and the high court directed that the request of the information seeker about the information of his answer sheets and details of the interview marks, as well as the names of examiners, should be provided to him.

Even disclosing the marks and the answer sheets to the candidates will ensure that the candidates have been given marks according to their performance in the exam. This practice will ensure a fair play in this competitive environment, where a candidate puts his time in preparing for the competitive exams.”

But the bench said that the request of the information seeker about the details of the person who had examined the paper cannot be provided to the information seeker as the relationship between the public authority, i.e. service commission, and the examiners is totally within fiduciary relationship.