The EN Bulletin: New Delhi: Wednesday, November
28, 2018.
The Central Information Commission (CIC)
has issued a show-cause notice to governor for “dishonouring” a Supreme Court
judgment on the disclosure of ‘ list.
The CIC has also asked the Prime
Minister‘s Office, the finance ministry and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to
make public the letter of former RBI governor on bad loans.
Irked over the denial of information by
the RBI on the disclosure of the names of wilful defaulters who have taken bank
loans of Rs 50 crore and above in spite of a Supreme Court order, the CIC has
asked Patel to explain why a maximum penalty should not be imposed on him for
“dishonouring” the verdict.
The top court had upheld a decision taken
by then information commissioner Shailesh Gandhi, calling for disclosure of
names of wilful defaulters.
Patel, speaking on September 20 at the
Central Vigilance Commission (CVC), had said the guidelines on vigilance,
issued by the CVC, were aimed at achieving greater transparency, promoting a
culture of honesty and probity in public life and improving the overall
vigilance administration in the organisations within its purview, the CIC
pointed out.
“The commission feels that there is no
match between what RBI governor and deputy governor say and their website
regarding their RTI policy, and great secrecy of vigilance reports and
inspection reports is being maintained with impunity in spite of the Supreme
Court confirming the orders of the CIC in the Jayantilal case”, information
commissioner Sridhar Acharyulu said.
He concluded that it did not serve any
purpose in punishing the CPIO for this defiance, because he acted under the
instructions of top authorities.
“The commission considers the governor as
deemed PIO responsible for non-disclosure and defiance of SC orders and CIC
orders and directs him to show cause why maximum penalty should not be imposed
on him for these reasons, before November 16, 2018,” Acharyulu said.
He rejected the arguments of Santosh
Kumar Panigrahy of the RBI that section 22 of the Right to Information (RTI)
Act would not override various laws he quoted, prohibiting disclosure of names
and details of wilful defaulters and hence, the RBI should be discharged from
the obligations of disclosure.
“His contention that unless the above
referred enactments are repealed, the RBI cannot disclose the details of
defaulters is also absurd,” Acharyulu said.
He added that another contention of
Panigrahy that the pendency of a PIL before the Supreme Court on the issue
would prevent him from disclosure was also baseless as he did not present any
interim order passed by the Supreme Court preventing the disclosure of names of
wilful defaulters or against the proceedings before the CIC.
“These submissions of the RBI show that
its legal wing did not bring to the notice of the CPIO that in the RBI vs
Jayantilal N Mistry case, a Supreme Court bench consisting of M Y Eqbat and C
Nagappan JJ, on December 16, 2015 [Transferred Cases (Civil) Nos. 91 to 101 of
2015], gave a landmark decision, upholding the direction of the CIC to disclose
the inspection reports of the RBI and the names of wilful defaulters in many
cases, rejecting all the above referred contentions of the RBI,” Acharyulu
said.
The information commissioner said in that
case, the counsel for the RBI had raised the same contentions, referring to the
same cases referred by Panigrahy, and those were straightaway rejected by the
Supreme Court.
“The commission finds no merit in hiding
the names of, details and action against wilful defaulters of big bad loans
worth hundreds of crores of rupees.”
“The RBI shall disclose the bad debt
details of defaulters worth more than Rs 1,000 crore at the beginning, of Rs
500 crore or less at a later stage within five days and collect such
information from the banks in due course to update their voluntary disclosures
from time to time as a practice under section 4(1)(b) of the RTI Act,” he said.
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