When using the Right to Information, it is necessary to understand what is ‘information’. We will look at the definition given in the Act and then attempt to understand what it means.
The Act defines ‘information’ in Section 2 (f):
2 (f) "information" means any material in any form, including records, documents, memos, e-mails, opinions, advices, press releases, circulars, orders, logbooks, contracts, reports, papers, samples, models, data material held in any electronic form and information relating to any private body which can be accessed by a public authority under any other law for the time being in force;
Comments: In simple terms it means that information is anything, which exists in any form with a public authority. The specific instances –records, documents, memos, emails, opinions, advices,...,reports,..... samples,models,.. are merely meant to illustrate the broad scope. Clearly file notings are opinions, legal or other opinions obtained by Public authorities, or various reports received by them are all covered. This also lays down a very important principle. Information relating to any private body, which may not be covered by the definition of ‘Public Authority’ (given in Section 2 h), can be obtained through a public authority if the law allows the public authority to access it. Thus if any public authority has the right to ask for any information under the law from a private organisation-which is not a public authority;- the Citizen can ask for it from the public authority. A few illustrative examples of how information may be obtained from institutions which are not Public authorities:
a) Information about a private bank can be obtained from the regulator –Reserve Bank of India,- if the law permits RBI to ask for it. Most information of any significance can be accessed.
b) Information about a private unaided school--from the education department.
c) Information about a Public Limited Company –from the Registrar of Companies or SEBI if the law empowers them to ask for it.
d) Information about a Cooperative Society-from the Registrar of Cooperative Societies.
e) Information about Trusts-from the Charities Commissioner.
There is some difference of opinion on whether the term ‘accessed’ means any information which the authority can ask for under various provisos or the information which the authority is usually supposed to get under the law. As an example: The Labour office requires certain information to be submitted at certain intervals- this certainly can be accessed under Right to Information, since all information with the State is held on behalf of the Citizen. However, the labour office during an investigation, can access virtually all the records of an organisation which normally would not be done. Some RTI users argue that this proviso can therefore be used to mean any information of a private organisation can be obtained through any Public authority by invoking the special investigative powers of the Public authority. Such a wide interpretation would actually mean that all private organisations could be forced to disclose all the information with them. Most Commissions do not agree with this view, and I am inclined to agree with their view. Only the information normally accessed by the Public authorities come under the ambit of RTI. On the other hand all information with the Public authority, is certainly information covered by the Right to Information Act. The Public authority holds the information on behalf of Citizens-the owners and masters of the Government,-on their behalf. Shri Laxmi Chauhan had asked for certain information from the PIO of the Ministry of Mines about BALCO. This was refused by the PIO. The CIC in its decision in this case in No.CIC/AT/A/2007/00389 has categorically stated, “The information must be available in the annual report of the company, which under law is to be submitted to shareholders. Being a shareholder of the company, with representation on its Board of management, the information sought must be available with the Ministry of Mines, and what is available with the Ministry cannot be denied to an applicant under the Right to Information Act.” Thus, once any information is with a Public authority, it is information available to any Citizen under the Right to Information Act, subject to the provisions of the Act. Repeatedly, the Act recognises that what is with the Government is on behalf of the Citizen, who is the rightful master.
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2 comments:
Very useful summary. For completeness (and to help newbies to RTI) it would be useful to note, from diverse rulings of the CIC, the following are NOT considered "information" under the Act: advice, explanation, opinion or what is interpreted as a 'roving inquiry,' unless these are already part of the record (as with file notings).
Sometimes only a small rewrite is needed to meet this definition and get very close to what an appellant seeks. E.g instead of "Why have you done nothing on my complaint ...?" one could say "Please provide me with a progress report on action taken, the list of officials responsible for taking the action ..."
In RTI requests to RBI and SEBI, a devious strategy they have adopted to exploit the CIC rulings that turn on the definition of information must be noted. Unlike the SEC in the US, SEBI and RBI do NOT post publicly the exact file formats of compliance filings made with them (e.g. for FII transactions filed by custodian banks) even though these data description documents are prepared by SEBI and RBI. So when a group of us academics interested in stale FII activity data for academic research applied, some made a more precise request, and these were denied because "we do not have the data in the format requested ...[how far apart we were was never revealed] ... too much effort required to convert ..." Some who made a broader request we denied as their request was called a "roving inquiry." There is no easy way out unless the CIC enforces s4 obligations of public authorities to disclose in advance what could reasonably be expected to be useful information ... like at least the data description in compliance filings.
A public-spirited bank chairman helped us get the RBI and SEBI circulars in which the detailed data format is given. Now the battle has shifted to invoking s7(9) too much work. Several IT experts I have shown my query to, and the compliance filing formats, have said because a std database format has been imposed on these filings, for my request the effort has to be trivial. But they need more information -- about hardware, software, etc -- to be able to help me make a precise statement of how the data available with SEBI or RBI can be provided. And SEBI and RBI are merely showing a deaf ear to all of this.
Is there some way to overcome this?
For one request to SEBI on matter referred to in my previous comment, the full document history starting with the initial RTI request till where it is now (waiting for the CIC to hear it for a second time) is available from http://www.rtiindia.org/directory/
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