The Court of Appeal, comprising Justices Sumudu Premachandra and R Gurusinghe, ruled on Friday (May 8, 2026) that:
“I do not see any reason to refuse if examinees request their own answer scripts which they wrote and how it was marked… University By-Laws suppressing the RTI have no force in law and we are of the view that the decision of the RTI Commission is well founded and cannot be refuted.”
The judgment was delivered in relation to a revision application filed by the Council of the Open University of Sri Lanka (OUSL) against a decision of the Right to Information Commission of Sri Lanka. The Commission had directed the OUSL to release the answer scripts and marks of a student who sat for the OUSL LLB Selection Test held on 01.08.2023. The request had originally been submitted by the student’s father, Mr. Janaka Roshan Ranasinghe, under the Right to Information Act.
The Court further cautioned that:
“There cannot be hide-and-seek games in higher educational institutions and transparency is a paramount consideration as required by Article 14A of the Constitution and the preamble of the Right to Information Act.”
The OUSL had argued before the RTI Commission that disclosure of examination-related materials, including answer scripts and details of evaluators, would undermine the integrity and confidentiality of the examination process and could create an adverse legal precedent. However, the Commission rejected these submissions on 28.11.2023 and ruled in favour of the information requester. Following this, the OUSL filed a revision application before the Court of Appeal, claiming that the Commission had erred in both facts and law.
Dismissing the application, Justice Premachandra observed:
“Every examinee will have the right to access their evaluated answer books subject to the confidentiality of the examiner who marked the answer sheet… we are therefore of the view that the decision of the RTI Commission cannot be found fault with.”
While acknowledging Section 5(1)(I) of the RTI Act—which allows a public authority to refuse disclosure if it would “harm the integrity of an examination”—the Court emphasized that this exemption is not absolute. It noted that requests for marked answer scripts must be assessed based on public interest considerations and the ability to sever exempt information. The Court further stated that a public authority cannot reject such requests through a bare denial without well-founded facts.
Referring to precedent, the Court cited the case of Bank of Ceylon v Right to Information Commission and S.M. Pasansani Anuradha (CA/RTI/REV/05/2021, decided on 12/02/2024), where the Court of Appeal upheld the RTI Commission’s decision to disclose information relating to candidates who sat a competitive examination conducted by the Department of Examinations for recruitment to Trainee Staff Assistant positions at the Bank of Ceylon. The Court in that case ruled that the disclosure related to public activity and public interest, noting that the requesting citizen represented broader public interests.
The judgment also referred to comparative legal reasoning from the Indian Supreme Court, which held that once a candidate writes answers in an answer book, it becomes a “record” and is therefore accessible under right to information legislation.
The Court of Appeal further criticized the OUSL for filing a revision application instead of exercising its statutory right of appeal under Section 34(1) of the RTI Act. The Court observed that revisionary jurisdiction is discretionary and is exercised only in exceptional circumstances. In this case, it found no such exceptional circumstances.
Accordingly, the Court concluded:
“The Petitioner Public Authority has not acted with due diligence and attendant circumstances do not warrant our intervention.”
