Details of account of a college under RTI
3 Jun, 2012Background
The appellant sought the copy of accounts of the student fund, development fund and general fund of the financial year 2006-07 to 2010-11 of a college at Patna. The Public Information Officer (PIO) denied the information under section 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; 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. of the RTI Act. He also stated that as per section 13(1) of Banking Companies Act, 1970 the Banker has to maintain secrecy of account details of its customer.
View of CIC
The appellant claimed that the college is a public body and therefore all details of a public body should be treated as being in public domain. The Central Information Commission (CIC) pointed out that this information is exempt under 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; 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; of the RTI Act. The Commission observed that a clear fiduciary relationship exists as customers of a Bank come to it because of the implicit trust they have in the bank and the information is provided to the Bank for their own benefit. Customers also have a choice of which bank they wish to approach. Holding that no larger public interest has been demonstrated in the case, the Commission rejected the appeal stating that the information sought by the appellant is exempt under 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; 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; of the RTI Act.
Comments
The bank account details of a public authority are not liable to be disclosed in a routine manner. Further, the CIC can take a different ground for denial of information and it is not imperative to follow the grounds given for refusal of information by the PIO/ FAA.
Citation: Mr. Lakhan Dev Narayan Sharma v. Syndicate Bank in Decision No. CIC/SG/A/2012/000411/18153
RTI Citation : RTIFI/2012/CIC/354
Click here to view original RTI order of Court / Information Commission