HC: Public bodies need not collect private party data for RTI applicants

A division bench of Justices Manish Pitale and Shreeram Shirsath was hearing petitions filed by SEBI and BSE challenging a series of CIC orders issued in May 2009

MUMBAI: Public authorities cannot be directed to collect information from private parties and hand it over to people seeking it under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, the Bombay high court ruled on Tuesday. The court quashed orders of the Central Information Commission (CIC) directing market regulator SEBI to obtain information from the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) and provide it to RTI applicants.

HC: Public bodies need not collect private party data for RTI applicants

A division bench of Justices Manish Pitale and Shreeram Shirsath was hearing petitions filed by SEBI and BSE challenging a series of CIC orders issued in May 2009.

The CIC had directed SEBI to obtain specific information from BSE and provide it to applicants. It had held that SEBI’s obligations under the RTI Act extended beyond information already available with it as a public body and included collecting information from third parties under its purview, such as the BSE and providing the same to RTI applicants.

Challenging the orders, SEBI and BSE argued that the RTI Act required a public authority to provide information held by it, but did not empower the CIC to compel it to collect information from a third party.

“The provisions do not indicate that a public authority, like SEBI in the present case - a regulatory body empowered to call upon third parties to provide information in terms of its own governing statute, is under an obligation to obtain information from third parties to satisfy persons applying for such information,” the bench added.

The court also noted that the CIC’s reasoning was also in teeth to the position of law clarified by the Supreme Court and held that the orders could not be sustained. It consequently quashed and set aside the CIC orders.