Business
Standard: New Delhi: Sunday, 07 December 2014.
The Central
Information Commission (CIC) has directed the Securities and Exchange Board of
India (Sebi) to reveal the details of assets and liabilities of its chairman,
UK Sinha, within four weeks. It has also sought the regulator declare Sinha’s
total emoluments.
A Sebi
spokesperson said the regulator would appeal against the order.
Overturning
its 2012 decision, the commission found an appeal in this regard to be a “fit
case, where the requested information should be disclosed in larger public
interest”. In an order dated November 28, a CIC Bench said, “We are inclined to
allow the disclosure of the requested information. The respondent is directed
to provide the information sought in para 2 (a) and (b) above to the appellant
within four weeks from the date of receipt of this order. The appeal is
allowed.
The appeal,
by Bengaluru-based advocate Arun Agrawal, challenged the Sebi central public
information officer (CPIO)’s decision to reject an RTI application seeking details
of “the assets and liabilities statement of UK Sinha, chairman of Sebi, for the
last three years or for the period declared by him; and (b) the total present
emoluments of UK Sinha, along with perquisites on which he has been employed
with Sebi”.
In response
to an email seeking comment, a Sebi spokesperson said, “It may be noted out of
four different cases of appeals filed by Arun Kumar Agrawal, CIC, in its
earlier common order dated November 6, 2012, inter alia, held ‘the information
regarding the assets and liabilities of the Sebi chairman is clearly in the
nature of personal information, exempt under subsection 1 (j) of section 8 of
the RTI Act’. We do not agree with the submissions of the appellant that
greater public interest will warrant the disclosure of such information and
would, therefore, not like to direct the CPIO to disclose any such
information”.
The statement
added, “On an appeal, the honourable Delhi High Court, vide an order dated
January 30, 2013, remanded the order to the CIC, on the grounds that no notice
was issued by the CIC to the parties that had approached the high court,
without expressing any views on the merits of the matter. However, the CIC,
vide four separate orders dated November 29, 2014, reversed its earlier order in
three cases and upheld the orders of the CPIO. With regard to the order
relating to disclosure of information pertaining to the Sebi chairman, the CIC
has reversed its decision dated November 6, 2012, which is beyond its
jurisdiction. Sebi will prefer an appeal.
Sebi also
said the points before the CIC pertaining to compensation and salary and its
disclosure were earlier raised by Agrawal before the Supreme Court. The apex
court had studied these issues in detail and vide an order November 1, 2013,
dismissed the writ petition. "It is also informed the Sebi chairman has
been regularly filing his property returns, according to extant
guidelines."
Though the
issues raised by Agrawal had been dealt with and his writ petition was
dismissed by the Supreme Court, he had been raising the same issues on various
fora time and again, the Sebi spokesperson said.
In a separate
order, the CIC has also directed Sebi to provide copies of all documents, along
with file notes from the time of conception and preparation of the note for the
approval and notification of the circular that brought into effect the consent
order mechanism and compounding of offences. However, it allowed the markets
regulator to excise the names and designations of the officers making the file
notes.
On Saturday,
Business Standard had reported two other appeals of Agrawal, also part of CIC's
2012 order, to which Reliance Industries had raised objections, were dismissed
by the commission.
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