The First Appellate Authority of Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India ( IBBI ) ,Sri Santosh Kumar Shukla has allowed the RTI application seeking information on complaint against IRP.
The Appellant, Utility Premises Private Limited filed RTI Application before Central Public Information Officer. The Central Public Information Officer communicated that under RTI Act, only citizens can seek information and since the Applicant is not a citizen, it is not eligible to seek information under RTI Act. Aggrieved appellant filed appeal before the Executive Director and First Appellate AuthorityInsolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India challenging the communication of the respondent.
The appellant submitted before the authority that in Namita Pattanaik v. PIO, EPFO and also reiterated in J.C.Talukdar vs. C.E.(E) CPWD Kolkata where, The Commission rejected the contention of the CPIO that the Act does not make provision for giving information to Corporations, Associations, Companies etc. which are legal entities/persons, but not citizens. The objective of the Right to Information Act is to secure access to information to all citizens in order to promote transparency and accountability.
The authority relying the decision of CIC in J.C. Talukdar vs. C.E.(E) CPWD Kolkata (CIC/WB/C/2007/00104 & 105 dated 17 May 2007) observed that Section 3 of the RTI Act confers “right to information” on all “citizens”. A “citizen” under the Constitution Part II that deals with “citizenship” can only be a natural born person and it does not even by implication includes a legal or a juristic person… Even if it were conceded that a company or a corporate body is a legal entity distinct from its shareholders and it is not in itself a citizen it is a fact that all superior courts have been admitting applications in exercise of their extraordinary jurisdiction from companies, societies and associations under Article 19 of the Constitution of which the RTI Act, 2005 is achild. Very few petitions have been rejected on the ground that the Applicants / Petitioners are corporatebodies or companies or associations and as such not “citizens”. This Commission also has been receiving sizeable number of such applications from such entities. If the courts could give relief to such entities the PIOs also should not throw them out on a mere technical ground that the Applicant / Appellant happened to be a legal person and not a citizen
Based on the observations the First Appellate Authority admitted the appeal and directed the CPIO to deal with the information request of the Appellant on merits.
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