Case Law Details
Goods and Service Tax Network Vs Information Commissioner, CIC & Anr. (Delhi High Court)
The issue under consideration is whether RTI application seeking disclosure of Minutes of the Board Meeting & resolutions of Goods & Service Tax Network (GSTN) by information commissioner will be sustain in law?
High Court states that, in their opinion the minutes of the board meetings are bound to contain some confidential information relating to the commercial aspects of the company, the technological aspects of the technology and other IT network that it is providing to various governments/government agencies. Disclosure of such information is likely to harm the interest of the petitioner. Respondent has failed to show that larger public interest warrants the disclosure of such information. This aspect has not been noted or stated in the impugned order. Further, it is true that the Commission directed exclusion of the information which was exempt under Section 8(1)(d) of the Act, but, that was not a correct approach to deal with the matter. By doing so, the Commission left the whole thing to the discretion of the petitioner to decide as to which information would be exempt from disclosure and which information would not attract the exemption provisions contained in the Act. The correct approach, would have been to call upon the petitioner-bank to satisfy the Commission as to how and to what extent the information sought by the petitioner, included matters of commercial confidence, trade secret or intellectual property of the petitioner the disclosure of which would harm the competitive position of a third party and then take a view in the matter. For this purpose, the Commission could also have examined such part of the information which the petitioner claimed to be exempt under Section 8(1)(d) of the Act, without disclosing the same to the respondent. Of course, if the Commission was of the view that larger public interest warranted disclosure of the information, it could have directed such disclosure even if the information was in the nature of commercial confidence, trade secret or intellectual property of the petitioner, but, to leave it to the petitioner to decide as to which information was exempt from disclosure and which could be disclosed to the applicant is likely to result in further litigation since the applicant may not be satisfied with the decision of the petitioner-bank in this regard and may be constrained to again knock at the door of the Commission. The CIC had passed a decision to give the Minutes of the Board Meeting directing expunction of information which was exempt under Section 8(1)(d) of the Act. Hence, the CIC left the whole thing at the discretion of the petitioner which was held not to be the correct approach.
A perusal of the reply given by the CPIO dated 17.09.2014 to respondent No. 2‟s application shows that there were in all 10 Board Meetings that had been held. Further details are not on record. In the facts of this case, it would be for the CIC to go into the minutes of the Board Meetings and of the AGMs and to determine as to which of the information which is contained in the minutes attracts the provision of Section 8(1)(d) of the Act, namely, are exempt from disclosure and which portion of the minutes can be given to respondent No. 2 in response to his application under the RTI Act. The CIC while looking at the aforesaid matter afresh may keep into account the above observations of the Supreme Court to determine as to whether the demand of respondent No. 2 for minutes of all the Board Meetings for the stated period would fall in the category of being counterproductive and a misuse/abuse of the RTI Act that was frowned upon by the Supreme Court.
HC found the impugned order contrary to the legal position and set aside the same. The matter is remanded back to the CIC for fresh consideration as above.
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