Union of India v. R K Batra & Ors.

1. This hearing has been done through hybrid mode.

2. The Petitioner/Union of India through the Ministry of Finance is aggrieved by the order of the Central Information Commission (‘CIC’) dated 11th August, 2021 by which the CIC has imposed a penalty and has also directed the Petitioner to give the information sought by the RTI applicant.

3. The RTI applicant sought the following information: “(í) Indian Banks Association Report (2004), (ií) Whether the Indian Bank Association was directed by the Government of India to submit any report? If yes, kindly provide, a) A certified copy of the relevant order vide which Indian Bank Association was directed. b) Certified copy of the terms of reference on which the Indian Bank Association was directed to submit its report. c) The details of officials who had conducted the study and submitted the above report.

(iii) Certified copies of the recommendations made in the Indian Banks Association Report (2004) and have been accepted by the Government of India.

(iv) Whether the information pertaining to para 1 to 3 above available on website, in terms of Section 4(1)(b) of the RTI Act? a) if yes, kindly provide the URL link. b) If no, reasons available on record.”

4. The said information was not provided to the RTI applicant. The stand taken was that the certified photocopy of the Indian Banks Association (‘IBA’) Report, 2004 relates to a third party viz., IBA. The publication, which is a priced publication would not fall within the definition of ‘information’ under Section 2(f) of the Right to Information Act, 2005 (hereinafter ‘RTI Act’). The remaining queries were also rejected. However, the URL link for IBA www.iba.org.in was provided. This was challenged by the RTI applicant and resulted finally, in the order of the CIC. The operative portion of the said order reads as under:

5. The submission of Mr. Ravi Prakash, ld. Counsel is that IBA is a private body which has published its report. The same was neither commissioned nor sponsored by the Government. He relies upon the list of publications which are openly available on the IBA’s website to submit that for a sum of Rs.75/- the said report can be obtained from the IBA. He further submits that the report was not sponsored by the Government and thus, none of the other queries could have been answered in any other manner than as stated in the reply of the CPIO. He prays that since the IBA is a private body and the information sought was duly answered, the imposition of penalty is not sustainable.

6. On behalf of the Respondent, ld. Counsel relies upon the statement made by the Minister of State for Finance dated 5th January, 2018 to argue that, in the answer given to an unstarred question in Parliament, the Minister relied upon the discussions of various committees and their reports including the Narasimhan Committee Report (1998), Indian Banks’ Association Report (2004), Planning Commission Report (2008), Leeladhar Committee (2008) and the Nayak Committee (2014), to answer certain queries. This in itself would show that the Government had sponsored this document.

7. From the list of publications placed on record or as available on the IBA website, it is clear that the report titled Consolidation in Indian Banking System, 2004 is available for a sum of Rs.75/-.

8. The CPIO had clearly replied to the RTI applicant that, the information sought seeking relevant orders, terms of reference, officials who conducted the study etc., are not available with the Government. This is obvious considering that it is the stand of the Government that the IBAs report was a private report which was published on its own volition and the Government has not sponsored it or in any manner directed the publication of the said report. This has also been clearly pleaded in the writ petition in paragraph 9 and 10, the relevant portions of which reads as under: “It is most respectfully submitted that IBA report asked for in the RTI application is a priced publication and available in the open market on paying a price of Rs. 75/- and a list of publications with their respective prices is available on the official website of IBA in regard to the same…….”

10. However, vide the Impugned Order dated 11.08.2021, the CIC erroneously held that the CPIO, Dept. of Financial Services, in defiance of its Order dated 20.1.2021 has given an evasive and misleading reply. It is respectfully submitted that the said findings given by the CIC is based on assumption that the Petitioner is in custody of the IBA Report which is incorrect.”

9. Ld. counsel submits that the report being openly available on the website, he has passed across a copy of the same to the Court. The report itself states that the IBA on its own decided to list out the issues that may arise while undertaking mergers and also suggested solutions to the problems. The said extract from the report is set out below: “It can hence be seen from the recommendations of the Narasimham Committee that mergers of the public sector banks were expected to emanate from the managements of the banks with the Government as common shareholder playing a supportive role. Although there may not have been any specific directive from the Government or the Reserve Bank of India to the banks to explore the possibility of such mergers, the banks could have initiated a dialogue for such merger and sought Government's nod for the same. Be that as it may, to facilitate the process of consolidation, Indian Banks' Association decided to list out the issues that may arise while undertaking actual mergers and also suggest solutions to any problems that may be encountered.”