Under RTI, can account details of a private company be disclosed to a shareholder?
8 Mar, 2013
Background
The appellant stated that he was a shareholder of the company and filed an application under the Right to Information (RTI) Act with the State Bank of India (SBI) seeking information about the accounts of a company, its Directors and other entities. The appellant claimed in his appeal before the First Appellate Authority (FAA) that no response was received from the Public Information Officer (PIO) while the FAA found that a response was sent. The First Appellate Authority (FAA) denied the information under section 8(1)(d), section 8(1)(e)
Notwithstanding anything contained in this Act, there shall be no obligation to give any citizen, information available to a person in his fiduciary relationship, unless the competent authority is satisfied that the larger public interest warrants the disclosure of such information;
and section 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.
of the RTI Act stating that the sought information was related to bank customers/ clients which is personal and of commercial confidence in nature and is held in fiduciary capacity.
View of CIC
The Commission rejected the appeal stating that there is no sufficient reason to interfere with the order of the FAA.
Citation: Mr. Abnash Chander Mahajan v. State Bank of India in Decision No. CIC/DS/A/2012/000278/VS/02237