Uttarakhand High Court Orders Central Government to Provide Documents to IFS Officer Sanjiv Chaturvedi

The Uttarakhand High Court has directed the Central Government to provide Uttarakhand cadre Indian Forest Service (IFS) Officer Sanjiv Chaturvedi with documents related to his empanelment. The court’s order specifies that the records concerning the process and decision-making of his empanelment at the level of the Joint Secretary, who made the decision on November 15, 2022, must be disclosed.

A division bench of Chief Justice Ritu Bahri and Justice Alok Kumar Verma issued these orders on September 3rd, following a writ petition filed by Chaturvedi, who argued his own case. The court stated, “Keeping in view that the petitioner has sought his own record, a direction is being given to the respondents to give the record relating to the process and decision making of the empanelment of the petitioner at the level of the Joint Secretary, who took the decision on November 15, 2022.” The order clarified that only the records related to Chaturvedi’s empanelment should be supplied to him.

These orders are the first of their kind passed by any court regarding the supply of documents related to empanelment to an aggrieved officer. The Central Government had previously passed an order on November 15, 2022, stating that the Appointment Committee of Cabinet (ACC) had not approved Chaturvedi’s empanelment for holding the post of Joint Secretary or equivalent at the Centre.

In his petition, Chaturvedi cited his consistent outstanding grading, four presidential orders in his favor during his tenure in Haryana, appreciation of his performance as Chief Vigilance Officer (CVO) in AIIMS by the Union Health Ministry as exemplary, and various favorable observations about his credentials by the Uttarakhand High Court, Delhi High Court, and the Supreme Court. He also claimed to have been relentlessly persecuted for years for discharging his official duties honestly and fearlessly.

Initially, Chaturvedi had filed a petition in the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) in December 2022, but it was dismissed in May this year on the grounds that the disclosure of records pertaining to ACC and CSB being confidential documents is prohibited as per Section 8(1)(i) of the RTI Act. Chaturvedi challenged this order before the Uttarakhand High Court in June, claiming that the tribunal’s order was based on baseless and factually incorrect submissions by the Central Government. He argued that the proviso of Section 8(1)(i) of the RTI Act, which states that the decisions of the Council of Ministers and the material on which the decisions were based should be made public after the decision has been taken and the matter is complete, was ignored by the tribunal.