Can Bill of Entries filed by the importers be disclosed under RTI?
20 Nov, 2012Background
The appellant filed an application under the Right to Information (RTI) Act with the Office of the Commissioner of Customs seeking information such as, the details of Electrical Motors cleared by ICD during the period August 2010 to January 2011; the invoice value of the imported electrical motors; the copies of Bills of Entries etc. The Public Information Officer (PIO) provided requisite information in CD as available in the office/EDI System. The First Appellate Authority (FAA) denied the Bill of Entries of the importers under sections 8(1)(d) Notwithstanding anything contained in this Act, there shall be no obligation to give any citizen, information including commercial confidence, trade secrets or intellectual property, the disclosure of which would harm the competitive position of a third party, unless the competent authority is satisfied that larger public interest warrants the disclosure of such information; Notwithstanding anything contained in this Act, there shall be no obligation to give any citizen, information including commercial confidence, trade secrets or intellectual property, the disclosure of which would harm the competitive position of a third party, unless the competent authority is satisfied that larger public interest warrants the disclosure of such information; and 8(1)(j) Notwithstanding anything contained in this Act, there shall be no obligation to give any citizen, information which relates to personal information the disclosure of which has no relationship to any public activity or interest, or which would cause unwarranted invasion of the privacy of the individual unless the Central Public Information Officer or the State Public Information Officer or the appellate authority, as the case may be, is satisfied that the larger public interest justifies the disclosure of such information: Provided that the information which cannot be denied to the Parliament or a State Legislature shall not be denied to any person. Notwithstanding anything contained in this Act, there shall be no obligation to give any citizen, information which relates to personal information the disclosure of which has no relationship to any public activity or interest, or which would cause unwarranted invasion of the privacy of the individual unless the Central Public Information Officer or the State Public Information Officer or the appellate authority, as the case may be, is satisfied that the larger public interest justifies the disclosure of such information: Provided that the information which cannot be denied to the Parliament or a State Legislature shall not be denied to any person. of the RTI Act stating that it is the information of third party involving commercial confidence, trade secrets etc. and disclosure of which has no relationship to any public activity or interest. The FAA also noted that in order to disclose such information, consent of the third party is required to be obtained under section 11 of the RTI Act and it was difficult to obtain consent of the third party as it is not specific and importer/party name-wise so as to enable department to get consent of third party. The information has been sought on the basis of commodity name only. The FAA further held that the Notification by which Daily Lists of imports and exports rules was issued stipulates that the particulars of the EDI Data may be published in the format specified under it. This provides authority to the Customs Department to bring information related to import and export in public domain under certain format.
Proceeding
During the hearing before the Central Information Commission (CIC), the appellant submitted that during the period for which information is sought the staff of the Commissioner of Customs ICD were hands in gloves with importers of electrical motors causing huge financial loss to Government exchequer therefore as a responsible citizen of the country she thought it appropriate to expose the nexus and try to help in plugging revenue loss to the Government.
View of CIC
The Commission observed that requisite information permissible has been provided to the appellant. The CIC rejected the appeal stating that in respect of the information pertaining to Bill of Entries of the importers, there is no disclosure obligation under the provisions of sections 8(1)(d) Notwithstanding anything contained in this Act, there shall be no obligation to give any citizen, information including commercial confidence, trade secrets or intellectual property, the disclosure of which would harm the competitive position of a third party, unless the competent authority is satisfied that larger public interest warrants the disclosure of such information; Notwithstanding anything contained in this Act, there shall be no obligation to give any citizen, information including commercial confidence, trade secrets or intellectual property, the disclosure of which would harm the competitive position of a third party, unless the competent authority is satisfied that larger public interest warrants the disclosure of such information; and 8(1)(j) Notwithstanding anything contained in this Act, there shall be no obligation to give any citizen, information which relates to personal information the disclosure of which has no relationship to any public activity or interest, or which would cause unwarranted invasion of the privacy of the individual unless the Central Public Information Officer or the State Public Information Officer or the appellate authority, as the case may be, is satisfied that the larger public interest justifies the disclosure of such information: Provided that the information which cannot be denied to the Parliament or a State Legislature shall not be denied to any person. Notwithstanding anything contained in this Act, there shall be no obligation to give any citizen, information which relates to personal information the disclosure of which has no relationship to any public activity or interest, or which would cause unwarranted invasion of the privacy of the individual unless the Central Public Information Officer or the State Public Information Officer or the appellate authority, as the case may be, is satisfied that the larger public interest justifies the disclosure of such information: Provided that the information which cannot be denied to the Parliament or a State Legislature shall not be denied to any person. of the RTI Act as it relates to commercial confidence trade secrets and disclosure of which would harm the competitive position of third party.
Citation: Ms. Sindhu v. Office of the Commissioner of Customs ICD in Case No. CIC/SS/A/2012/000957
RTI Citation : RTIFI/2012/CIC/808
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