ABC Live; Dinesh Singh Rawat;Thursday, 04 November 2010
New Delhi (ABC Live): The Central information Commission has asked State Bank of India to publish bank’s manual on loans and advances pertaining to micro and small enterprises on its website and put these under Right to information Act.
It is to mention that Chakradhar Panigrahi of Mumbai asked information under RTI act from State Bank of India, Mumbai on 08.05.2010 but SBI refused to give information to Chakradhar Panigrahi giving reason that sought information it was exempted from disclosure under Section 8(1)(d) of the RTI Act.
Chief Information Commissioner A.N. Tiwari after hearing both sides has decided on November 4, 2010 vide CIC/AT/A/2010/000596 that the policies and procedures followed by the Bank in matters of microfinance touch the lives of millions of people.
There is good reason why these policies as well as the procedures established thereof should be in the public domain in order that the customers of the Bank and the potential customers for microfinance are suitably made aware about all its pros and cons before taking the decision to become a loanee of the Bank.
Further stated that he failed to understand as to how such an important policy/procedure if disclosed would jeopardize the bank’s commercial interest visàvis others or impair its
intellectual property rights. In fact this information ought to have been put up on the public domain suomotu by the Bank for the public’s knowledge.
The State Bank of India discharges an extremely important public responsibility and citing technical reasons to prevent disclosure of essential information such as this, does not do justice to its standing and image.
Also he asked bank to give the information as requested by this appellant must bedisclosed in public interest and urged the Bank that they voluntarily place this information on the website for the information of the general public.
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