Authority: Appellate Authority under the RTI Act, Securities and Exchange Board of India
Order Date: September 09, 2026
Case Overview
The appeal was filed by Aniket Singh (Appellant) against the Central Public Information Officer (CPIO), SEBI, Mumbai (Respondent). The proceedings stemmed from an RTI application dated July 17, 2026, filed by the appellant. The appellant sought a certified copy of his evaluated answer script for Paper 1 (Descriptive English) of the Phase-2 Online Examination for the Recruitment of Officer Grade A (Assistant Manager) General Stream, 2025. He also requested any remarks, annotations, moderation notes, examiner observations, or evaluation markings made on the answer script.
The respondent (CPIO, SEBI) responded on August 14, 2026, informing the appellant that the online examination was conducted by the Institute of Banking Personnel Selection (IBPS), an autonomous body, as per a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). The response stated that only IBPS is in possession of the copies of the evaluated descriptive paper and that these are not shared with SEBI. Consequently, the requested information was not available with SEBI.
The appellant filed the appeal (No. SEBIH/A/E/26/00311) on August 14, 2026, on the ground that he was refused access to the information. The Appellate Authority perused the application, the response, and the appeal. The authority relied on the established legal principle, as observed by the Hon'ble Central Information Commission (CIC) in the matter of Lakshminarayanan R vs. SEBI (order dated February 09, 2023), that information must be existent and available in the records of the public authority to be disclosable under the RTI Act, 2005.
Final Outcome
The Appellate Authority found no deficiency in the CPIO's response and concluded that there was no need to interfere with the decision. The appeal was dismissed.
Topics: RTI Appeal, SEBI Recruitment, Information Disclosure