Dr Raja Muzaffar Bhat
Supreme Court (SC) in a recent order dismissed several applications made by some private and public sector banks praying for recalling the 2015 judgment against the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) vis a vis making it accountable under Right to Information Act (RTI). The Supreme Court had directed the RBI to make its annual inspection reports and loan defaulters list public under RTI Act 2005. The court in its detailed judgment said that Reserve Bank of India (RBI) was duty-bound to uphold the public interest by revealing these details under RTI.
The recall applications were filed by several banks which included State Bank of India (SBI). The case was listed before a Supreme Court division bench of Justices L Nageswara Rao and Vineet Saran. The banks argued that the SC’s judgment had not considered important legal and constitutional provisions. They said that the order was violating the “right to privacy”, which has been held to be an inseparable part of the fundamental right to life and personal liberty under article 21 the Constitution of India as per its Justice K S Puttaswamy judgement.
“A close scrutiny of the applications for recall makes it clear that in substance, the applicants are seeking a review of the judgment in Jayantilal N.Mistry (supra). Therefore, we are of the considered opinion that these applications are not maintainable. We make it clear that we are not dealing with any of the submissions made on the correctness of the judgment of this Court in Jayantilal N Mistry,” the court observed.
The court further opined that the RBI must act with transparency and not hide information that might embarrass banks and that it is duty-bound to comply with the provisions of the RTI Act and disclose the information. While examining its previous judgment, the court also held that there was no provision in the Supreme Court Rules for a recall of the judgment.
The court added that parties should not be allowed to file applications to reopen concluded judgments of the court.
Background of the case
An RTI activist named Jayantilal Mistry from Gujarat way back in 2010 had sought information under RTI Act 2005 from the RBI about a Gujarat-based cooperative bank. The information pertained to the annual inspection reports prepared by RBI which had not been put into public domain. Mistry filed an application under RTI Act 2005 in October 2010 before the Central Public Information Officer (CPIO) of Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The RBI, however, did not provide the requested details. Information seeker Jayantilal Mistry then filed an appeal before the designated First Appellate Authority (FAA) of the RBI. On March 30th, 2011, the FAA disposed of the appeal by upholding the order of the CPIO. Aggrieved information seekers finally filed 2nd appeal before the Central Information Commission (CIC) New Delhi. The CIC in its judgment November 1st , 2011 order, directed the RBI to provide information before 30th November 2011.
Aggrieved by the decision of the CIC, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) filed a writ petition before the Delhi High Court for quashing of the CIC’s judgment. The High Court, while issuing notice, stayed the operation of CIC’s order. The matter was finally challenged before the Supreme Court of India.
Information sought ?
In addition to Jayantilal Mistry several other RTI applications were filed before the RBI seeking copies of inspection reports of various public and private sector banks, alongside a list of bank loan defaulters. A statutory inspection was conducted by RBI inspectors between May 2010 to June 2010 in the Makarpura Industrial Estate Cooperative Bank Ltd in Gujarat. This inspection had been conducted by the RBI under the Banking Regulation Act (BRA). Subsequently, in October 2010, Jayantilal Mistry had sought the information on the following points from the RBI via an RTI application:
1. Procedure, rules and regulations of inspection being carried out on cooperative banks.
2. Last RBI investigation and audit report carried out by Shri Santosh Kumar from 23rd April 2010 to 6th May 2010 that was sent to the Registrar of the Cooperative of Gujarat state.
3. Last 20 years inspection report carried out in Makarpura Industrial Estate Cooperative Bank Ltd along with names of inspectors and action taken report.
4. Reports on all cooperative banks went on liquidation plus action taken against all Managers and Directors for recovery of public funds and powers utilized by RBI and analysis and procedure adopted.
5. Names of remaining cooperative banks under your observation for irregularities and action taken reports.
6. Specify the time period required to take action and implementation.
To the first question, the CPIO said that RBI was conducting the inspection under section 35 of the Banking Regulation Act, 1949 at regular intervals. The second question was not answered, with the CPIO invoking section 8(1)(a) and (e) of the RTI Act to claim that that information was held by the RBI under fiduciary relationship, and thus could not be revealed under the transparency law.
For the third and fourth questions, the same exemption clause was invoked by the CPIO, and to the final two questions, the CPIO simply responded with “no specific information has been sought.”
Conclusion
Supreme Court in its 2015 judgment on applicability of RTI has made a detailed reference to section 2(f) of the RTI Act 2005 which defines the information . The RBI collects inspection reports from various banks. Since these reports fall within the definition of ‘information’, the same must be provided to citizens. Ideally, the RBI should make these reports public through its website. By dismissing the recall application, the apex court, in its supreme wisdom, has made it clear that citizens have every right to make banking institutions accountable, especially at a time when big loan defaulters lists and inspection reports are always kept confidential by banks….
(The author is Founder & Chairman of Jammu & Kashmir RTI Movement)
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