Veena Sikri

New Delhi, April 25 (PTI): The Prime Minister’s Office has turned down superseded IFS officer Veena Sikri’s plea for information on the process followed by the government in appointing her junior Shiv Shankar Menon as foreign secretary.

Asked to provide access to file notings on the appointment under the Right to Information Act, the PMO told the Central Information Commission that such disclosures would lead to “unwarranted invasion of the privacy of individual IFS officers screened for the post of foreign secretary”.

While hearing Sikri’s appeal yesterday, chief information commissioner Wajahat Habibullah had said such information should be revealed if anyone asked for it. “The entire issue is in the public domain,” he had said.

The cabinet secretariat, however, sought exemption from the disclosure on the grounds that cabinet papers were immune under the RTI Act and could not be put in the public domain.

Sikri, a 1971-batch IFS officer, had approached the commission after Menon, a year junior to her, was appointed foreign secretary superseding 16 officers.

She had sought information on the rules followed by the government in the selection of the foreign secretary and the process that led to Menon’s appointment.

Sikri, assisted by her counsel, argued that disclosure of such details was in public interest.

The IFS officer, who in November returned to Delhi from Dhaka — where she was posted as high commissioner — in protest against Menon’s appointment, had appealed to the information commission on March 9.

“There are some objective, well-established criteria for selection of the foreign secretary. I deserve to know why I don’t fit the bill,” she had said.

A bench of Habibullah and information commissioner .P. Kejariwal said: “Why only the appellant, if anyone else asks for this information, it should be disclosed.”

On a question raised by the commission as to who held the file details of Menon’s appointment, the foreign ministry, the department of personnel and training and the cabinet secretariat were found wanting in their replies.