The CIC has directed President Secretariat to seek the opinion of Chief Election Commissioner Naveen Chawla before disclosing the letter written by former incumbent R Gopalaswami to the President regarding Chawla's alleged "partisan" functioning.

Exercising his Right to Information, an activist S C Agrawal had sought the copy of Gopalaswami's letter which was rejected by the President's Secretariat saying its disclosure would be an invasion of privacy and denied the same.

However, he argued that contents of the letter were already in the media and hence there was no reason to claim 'invasion of privacy'.

Hearing the matter, Chief Information Commissioner Wajahat Habibullah on November 9 upheld earlier decisions by both the CPIO and Appellate Authority saying "the information sought is third party and held in confidence by the President."

The CIC directed the CPIO, President Secretariat to refer the matter to the third party, Naveen Chawla, CEC to obtain his opinion before disclosing the information.

The Commission, hearing another appeal by Agrawal related to the letter of former President A P J Abdul Kalam to former Prime Minister A B Vajpayee in 2004 expressing his displeasure over some persons listed for the prestigious Padma Awards, ordered to provide copy of file notings barring references to individuals and discussion of their merits and demerits.

The Commission observed that disclosure of such information would assuredly amount to invasion of privacy...and directed the CPIO to provide copy of the notings of the "impugned file deleting therefrom all references to individuals and discussion of their merits and demerits."

... contd.