Delhi HC quashes RTI seeking GSTN’s minutes of board-meeting citing vagueness in CIC’s directions [Read Order]

The Delhi High Court sets aside order allowing RTI application seeking disclosure of Minutes of the Board Meeting & resolutions of Goods & Service Tax Network (GSTN) as it was vague in the direction of CIC.

The petitioner is a non-government private limited company registered under Section 25 of the Companies Act, 1956. The Government of India holds 24.5% equity in the Company and all States of Union of India including the Government of NCT of Delhi and Puducherry together hold 24.5% equity shares. Balance 51 % of equity shares are held by other non-governmental financial institutions. It is stated that the Company was set up primarily to provide IT infrastructure and services to the Central and State Governments, taxpayers, and other stakeholders for implementation of the Goods and Services Tax.

It was pleaded that the petitioner Company is responsible for providing a uniform interface for the taxpayer and a common and shared IT infrastructure between the Central Government and the States.

The Respondent filed an RTI application addressed to CPIO of the petitioner Company seeking the information namely number of Meetings of GSTN’s Board of Directors held from March 28, 2013 till date along with the date of each meeting; date on which the AGM of GSTN has been held in the year 2013 and 2014; copies of minutes of all the Board meetings along with minutes of the AGM; total number of Resolutions passed by the GSTN’s Board of Directors; and Copies of the Resolutions.

The concerned CPIO provided information in respect of the number of Meetings of GSTN’s Board of Directors and date on which the AGM of GSTN has been held. However, the information in relation to the minutes of the meetings of the Board of Directors which was confidential and hence, could not be made open to the public at large.

It is further pleaded that respondent has not been able to establish any public interest in seeking the said information from the petitioner Company and therefore, the information sought by the respondent is exempt from disclosure under Section 8(1) (d) and Section 8(1) (j) of the RTI Act, 2005.

The single-judge bench of Justice Jayant Nath held that remanded back to the CIC for fresh consideration.

The bench noted that it would be for the CIC to go into the minutes of the Board Meetings and of the AGMs and to determine as to which of the information which is contained in the minutes attracts the provision of Section 8(1)(d) of the Act, namely, are exempt from disclosure and which portion of the minutes can be given to respondent No. 2 in response to his application under the RTI Act.

“The CIC while looking at the aforesaid matter afresh may keep into account the observations of the Supreme Court to determine as to whether the demand of respondent No. 2 for minutes of all the Board Meetings for the stated period would fall in the category of being counterproductive and a misuse/abuse of the RTI Act that was frowned upon by the Supreme Court,” the bench said.