9911796707
TMI Blog2020 (8) TMI 531X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ts, tax payers and other stakeholders for implementation of the Goods and Services Tax. 3. It is pleaded that the petitioner Company is responsible for providing a uniform interface for the tax payer and a common and shared IT infrastructure between the Central Government and the States. 4. Respondent No. 2 is said to have filed an RTI application addressed to CPIO of the petitioner Company on 16.08.2014 seeking the following information:- "A. Number of Meetings of GSTN's Board of Directors held from 28.03.2013 till date along with the date of each meeting. B. Date on which the AGM of GSTN has been held in the year 2013 and 2014. C. Copies of Minutes of all the Board meetings as referred above along with minutes of the AGM. D. Total no. of Resolutions passed by the GSTN's Board of Directors from 28.03.2013 till date, along with the date of each resolution. E. Copies of the Resolutions as referred to above." 5. It is pleaded that the concerned CPIO on 17.09.2014 provided information to respondent No. 2 for points A and B above. For points C to E, the said information was in relation to the minutes of the meetings of the Board of Directors which was confidential ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... tedly no public interest has been pleaded or established. (ii) It is further stated that the petitioner company has been primarily set up to provide IT infrastructure and services to the Central and the State Governments, tax payers and other stake holders for implementing GST. It is responsible for protection of the networking system which includes intellectual property data as well as other commercial confidential information that went into building the technology infrastructure for implementing GST. All this is contained in the resolutions and minutes of the Board. It is strongly urged that all this information squarely falls within the ambit of Section 8(1)(d) of the RTI Act. (iii) It is reiterated that respondent No. 1 has failed to appreciate that minutes/resolutions of the board meetings, minutes of the AGM contain issues relating to the petitioner's policies, IT infrastructure, commercial activities, strategies, future plans and other financial and administrative aspects which would harm the petitioner Company as well as government's competitive position. (iv) It is further pleaded that it is settled law that where an applicant is seeking a large quantity of data and ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ure of which would harm the competitive position of a third party, are exempt from being disclosed under the RTI Act. The exception being where a competent authority is satisfied that larger public interest warrants the disclosure of such information. 14. In this context reference may be had to the judgment of the Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court in the case of Supreme Court of India vs. Subhash Chandra Agarwal, 2019 SCC OnLine SC 1459. The Supreme Court interpreted and elaborated the above provision as follows:- "25. ..... Sub-section (1) of Section 8 begins with a non-obstante clause giving primacy and overriding legal effect to different clauses under the sub-section in case of any conflict with other provisions of the RTI Act. Section 8(1) without modifying or amending the term "information', carves out exceptions when access to "information', as defined in Section 2(f) of the RTI Act would be denied. Consequently, the right to information is available when information is accessible under the RTI Act, that is, when the exceptions listed in Section 8(1) of the RTI Act are not attracted. In terms of Section 3 of the RTI Act, all citizens have right to information, sub ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... pondent No. 1, the petitioner would well be within its right to severe virtually the entire information as stated in the minutes of the board meetings. 16. Further, a perusal of the impugned order shows that respondent No. 1 noted the above submissions of the petitioner to the effect that the information being sought is confidential in nature and pertains to commercial aspects of the Company, etc. However, the impugned order does not adjudicate the said contention of the petitioner and passes the aforenoted directions. No reasons are given for rejecting the contention of the petitioner. 17. In my opinion the minutes of the board meetings are bound to contain some confidential information relating to the commercial aspects of the company, the technological aspects of the technology and other IT network that it is providing to various governments/government agencies. It would include information of commercial confidence, information which can be termed to be trade secrets, information which can be termed to be intellectual property regarding the various IT technologies used. Disclosure of such information is likely to harm the interest of the petitioner. Respondent has failed to sh ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... Reserve Bank of India vs. Kishanlal Mittal (supra). In that case also the applicant had sought minutes of meetings of RBI Board for two years and minutes of meetings of the Committee of Directors. This court in that case held as follows:- "7. It would thus be seen that the Commission did not at all deal with the view taken by the CPIO and the First Appellate Authority that the information sought by the respondent was exempt under Section 8 (1)(d) of the Act which exempts that information including commercial confidence, trade secrets or intellectual property, the disclosure of which would harm the competitive position of a third party, unless the competent authority is satisfied that larger public interest warrants the disclosure of such information. The Commission did not opine that the minutes of the board meetings for the last two years would not contain any information in the nature of commercial confidence, trade secret or intellectual property of the petitionerbank, the disclosure of which could harm the competitive position of a third party. The Commission also did not take the view that larger pubic interest warranted disclosure of the information sought by the respondent ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
|
