Live Law: Mumbai: Friday, March 03,
2017.
The
Aurangabad bench of the Bombay High Court has held that co-operative
institutions “need to supply” information to any “public authority” established
under the Cooperative Societies Act.
The bench of
Justice TL Nalwade and Justice Sangitrao Patil pronounced the judgment on
February 13 after hearing all parties in a writ petition filed by the Jalgaon
Jillha Urban Cooperative Banks Associations Ltd. The petitioners sought
exemption from disclosing information under the RTI Act, 2005.
They
contended that under Sections 2(h) and 8 of the Right to Information Act, 2005,
cooperative institutions registered under the Cooperative Societies Act cannot
be treated as a public authority and also are not ‘bound to disclose’ certain
information, which according to them is ‘confidential in nature’.
Petitioner’s
counsel NB Suryawanshi submitted that since the HC had already upheld their
prayers in the case of Agricultural Produce Market Committee v. Meghraj
Pundlikrao Dongre & Ors in 2011 and his client’s petition remained pending
even though it was tagged with the decided case, the petition itself should be
allowed.
However, SM
Kulkarni, who was appearing for another applicant in the matter, placed a
decision of the apex court in RBI v. Jayantilal Mistry in 2016 before the
bench. In the said judgment, the apex court discussed the effect of the
provisions of the Banking Regulation Act 1949, Reserved Bank of India Act 1934,
Credit Information Companies (Regulation) Act 2005, State Bank of India Act
1955, and Official Secrets Act, 1923, on the provisions made under the RTI Act.
It was held
that the Reserve Bank of India was liable to share information with the general
public and the exemption from sharing information under the RTI Act in Section
8 applies to exceptional cases
only.
Justice
Nalwade observed: “The petitioner and its members, cooperative institutions,
are registered under the Maharashtra Cooperative Societies Act, 1960. They are
bodies created by the statute. But right from the registration till the liquidation
there is control over these institutions of the authority created under the
same Act. The authority steps in to take decision on the rights of the members.
The authority has control over the manner in which the funds are invested or
the distribution of the funds is made for different purpose. Such institutions
cannot act independently and the apex bodies are created for such
institutions”.
The court
noted in the order that ‘public authority’ defined under the Cooperative
Societies Act can be created by the state legislature and officers like the
registrar and his sub-ordinates are appointed for this purpose.
Referring to
the earlier order of the high court in 2011, the bench observed: “The previous
interpretation made by this Court is not correct interpretation in view of the
law laid down by the Apex Court. In the result, the petition stands dismissed.”
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