Sunday 6 January 2013

routine/general informations with respect to booking and supply of domestic and commercial LPG cylinders should be granted under RTI Act


What is not disputed here is that the routine/general informations
with respect to booking and supply of domestic and commercial LPG cylinders
with home delivery and without home delivery facilities and other related
information, are already available with M/s Rajesh Gas Service, an authorized
distributor of LPG. Moreover, it is obligatory on the part of every public
authorities to maintain all its records in the manner depicted under section 4 of the
Act. The indicated informations sought are general in nature. Thus, the question of
any commercial confidentiality, trade secrets or intellectual property and
opportunity of hearing to the distributor did not arise at all. As it cannot possibly
be termed to be a third-party, as defined under Section 2 (n) of the Act. To me, if
the arguments of the learned counsel for the petitioner-Corporation are accepted as
such, then no information is permissible, which would certainly nullify the aims
and objects of the Act. Therefore, the contrary arguments of the learned counsel
for the petitioner “stricto sensu” liable to be and are hereby repelled and impugned
order deserves to be and is hereby maintained in the obtaining circumstances of the
case.
Civil Writ Petition No.1338 of 2011 1
IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH
Date of Decision:- 24.1.2011
M/s Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd. ...Petitioner
Versus
The Central Information Commission and others ...Respondents
CORAM: HON'BLE MR.JUSTICE MEHINDER SINGH SULLAR

Tersenessly, the facts, which require to be noticed for a limited
purpose of deciding the core controversy, involved in the instant writ petition and
emanating from the record, are that one Khushi Ram (respondent No.2) moved an
application dated 27.1.2009 (Annexure P1) to the Central Public Information
Officer (for brevity “the CPIO”), seeking the information mentioned therein and
here-in-below, pertaining to one M/s Rajesh Gas Service, an authorized distributor
of LPG, invoking the provisions of The Right to Information Act, 2005
(hereinafter to be referred as “the Act”). The CPIO did not supply the complete
information, which necessitated him (respondent No.2) to prefer first appeal,
which was dismissed as well, by the First Appellate Authority (for short “the
FAA”) (respondent No.3), by virtue of order dated 16.3.2009 (Annexure P4)
2. Aggrieved by the action of not supplying the information by the
CPIO and FAA, respondent No.2 filed the appeal (Annexure P5) before the
Central Information Commission (for brevity “the CIC”), which was partly
accepted by way of order dated 23.7.2009 (Annexure P8).
3. The petitioner-Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd. (for short “the
petitioner-Corporation”) had earlier challenged the order (Annexure P8), by virtue
of Civil Writ Petition No.14163 of 2009, which came to be disposed of by this
Court. The order (Annexure P8) was set aside and the matter was referred back

for its re-adjudication by the CIC, after passing a reasoned order, vide order dated
1.9.2010 (Annexure P10).
4. In this manner, the appeal of respondent No.2 was again heard by the
CIC, which was accepted, by means of impugned order dated 4.1.2011 (Annexure
P13), the operative part of which is as under:-
“Coming to the second issue, namely, whether the list of consumers
can be treated as information in the nature of commercial confidence, we
think that, in this particular case, it cannot be so considered. In Normal
circumstances, the list of clients or consumers of any commercial entity is
to be considered as commercial confidence. However, in this case, the
consumers happen to be those who are the beneficiaries of subsidized
cooking gas being provided by the HPCL. It is disingenuous to argue that
the subsidy in the case of the LPG being distributed through the public
sector oil companies is not given by the oil companies themselves but by
the Central Government through an administered price mechanism. The
Respondent had clearly admitted that the price at which gas was being
supplied to both the domestic and commercial consumers was fixed by the
Central Government and involved some amount of subsidy. Section 4(1)
(b)(xiii) of the Right to Information (RTI) Act mandates the public
authority to disclose proactively the particulars of the recipients of
concessions et cetera. Obviously, this is to ensure that all information
regarding any subsidy or concession given by the government is widely
known so that any possibility of selecting wrong beneficiaries or diverting
scarce and costly resources meant for certain classes of people can be
prevented. Thus, when the HPCL, as a public authority, is itself required
by law to publish the details of all such recipients, to treat the list of
recipients, in this case, the consumers of subsidized cooking gas, as
commercial confidence goes totally counter to the letter and spirit of the
Right to Information (RTI) Act. Transparency demands that such
information is routinely published in the public domain so that no one
needs to approach any CPIO for seeking the information. Once such
information is placed in the public domain, diversion of scarce cooking
gas meant for domestic consumers and provided at a great cost to the
nation will become difficult as the public would know about both classes
of beneficiaries in advance and highlight any such diversion noticed by
them. Keeping this information secret and confidential is not at all in the
Civil Writ Petition No.1338 of 2011 3
public interest nor in tune with the provisions of the Right to Information
(RTI) Act. Clearly, the provisions of Section 8(1)(d) cannot be invoked to
exempt the disclosure of the list of consumers, both domestic and
commercial. The observation of the Respondent that disclosing the names
of their customers would adversely affect the commercial interests of the
company and could expose it to undesirable competition is not acceptable
in the specific context of this case which relates to information regarding
subsidy or concession provided to the customers.
In the light of the above, we direct the CPIO to provide to the
Appellant within 10 working days from the receipt of this order the entire
lists of both the domestic and commercial consumers of this particular
distributorship including their name and address.”
5. The petitioner-Corporation still did not feel satisfied and filed the
instant writ petition, challenging the impugned order (Annexure P13), invoking the
provisions of Article 226 of the Constitution of India. That is how I am seized of
the matter.
6. Having heard the learned counsel for the petitioner, having gone
through the record and relevant provisions of the Act, with his valuable assistance
and after bestowal of thoughts over the entire matter, to my mind, there is no merit
in the instant writ petition in this context.
7. However, the main submissions of the learned counsel that the
information sought by respondent No.2, pertaining to third party, cannot be
supplied to him, in view of exemption of section 8 (1) (d) (e) and (j) of the Act and
since the CIC did not have the jurisdiction to supply it, so, the impugned order
(Annexure P13) is against the provisions of the Act, are neither tenable nor the
observations of this Court in case Rajan Verma v. Union of India, Ministry of
Finance, Banking Division, New Delhi and others (2008-1) PLR 253 are at all
applicable to the facts of the present case, therein, the firm had taken loan from the
bank. Petitioner stood as a guarantor for the repayment of the loan and pledged his
commercial property and that of his wife, in favour of the bank. The principal
loanee and the guarantor wanted to settle the matter with the bank. The bank

charged interest @ 14.5% per annum instead of 9% per annum. Large scale
embezzlement was stated to have been made by the Canara Bank while settling the
NPA of different parties and one Tarsem Bawa, Manager of the Bank
misappropriated an amount of Rs.3,17,00,000/- by withdrawing the government
dues from inter banking transactions. The petitioner therein moved an application
to the Chief Manager, Canara Bank, Amritsar for providing information under the
RTI Act with regard to the details of settlements made by the bank during the last
five years with the different parties of NPA, but the same was not supplied. The
information was denied to him by the CIC on the ground that the information
sought in respect of details of the customers falls under the exemption category
and the information relating to commercial confidence, trade secrets and
intellectual property cannot be sought as the same is exempted and barred under
section 8 (1) (d) (e) and (j) of the Act. On the peculiar facts and in the
circumstances of that case, the information was denied on the ground of
commercial confidence and trade secrets. The writ petition filed by the petitioner
was disposed of by this Court in the following manner :-
“The petitioner was seeking the details of accounts of other
private individuals and concerns and on that account, the same has
been rightly declined. Instead of making the payment of the loan
amount, for which he is legally bound, the petitioner has resorted to
rush the hierarchy of the bank by filing application under the RTI Act
in respect of information for which the bank is exempted under Section
8 of the RTI Act. It so seems that the petitioner has misused the
provisions of RTI Act.
So, in these circumstances, the writ petition is without any merit
and as such, the same stands dismissed.”
8. Possibly, no one can dispute with regard to the aforesaid
observations, but, to me, the same would not come to the rescue of the petitioner-
Corporation in the instant controversy.
9. As is evident from the record that respondent No.2 has only sought
the information by virtue of application (Annexure P1), pertaining to M/s Rajesh

Gas Service, opposite Nand Cinema, Hisar, an authorized distributor of LPG, such
as number of consumers, who use domestic LPG cylinders with home-delivery,
without home-delivery facilities, for commercial purpose, number of LPG
cylinders received from HPCL, LPG Plant, Jind, during the period 1.10.2008 to
31.12.2008 and procedure of booking system for domestic cylinders etc. and
nothing else.
10. At the very outset, the basic purpose, aims and objects of the Act,
have to be kept into focus, while deciding the present writ petition. It is not a
matter of dispute that the Act was enacted in order to ensure transparency in the
system, smoother and deep access to information and to provide an effective
framework for effecting the right to information, recognized under Article 19 of
the Constitution of India.
11. Above being the position on record, now the sole question, that arises
for determination in this petition, is as to whether such informations sought by
respondent No.2 fall within the exemption clause as contemplated under section 8
(1) (d) (e) and (j) of the Act or not ?
12. Ex facie, the argument of learned counsel for petitioner-Corporation
that the information sought is exempted under section 8 of the Act, is not only
devoid of merit but misplaced as well.
13. Having regard to the contentions of the learned counsel for the
petitioner-Corporation, to me, the indicated informations sought by respondent
No.2 do not squarely fall within the ambit of exemption clause as envisaged under
section 8 of the Act, as urged on its behalf.
14. As Section 8 (1) of the Act postulates that notwithstanding anything
contained in this Act, there shall be no obligation to give any citizen,---
(a) xx xx xx xx
(b) xx xx xx xx
(c) xx xx xx xx
(d) 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;
(e) Information available to a person, in his fiduciary relationship,
unless the competent authority is satisfied that the larger public
interest warrants the disclosure of such information.
(f) xx xx xx xx
(g) xx xx xx xx
(h) xx xx xx xx
(i) xx xx xx xx
(j) Information which relates to personal information the disclosure
of which has not relationship to any public activity or interest, or
which would cause unwarranted invasion of the privacy of the
individual unless the Central Public Information Officer or the State
Public Information Officer or the appellate authority, as the case may
be, is satisfied that the larger public interest justifies the disclosure of
such information.”
15. Sequelly, the word “Information” has been defined under Section 2
(f) to mean any material in any form, including records, documents, memos, emails,
opinions, advices, press releases, circulars, orders, logbooks, contracts,
reports, papers, samples, models, data material held in any electronic form and
information relating to any private body which can be accessed by a public
authority under any other law for the time being in force and word “Record”
includes--(i) any document, manuscript and file; (ii) any microfilm, microfiche and
facsimile copy of a document; (iii) any reproduction of image or images embodied
in such microfilm (whether enlarged or not); and (iv) any other material produced
by a computer or any other device.
16. Likewise, section 2(j) defines, “right to information” means the right
to information accessible under this Act which is held by or under the control of
any public authority and includes the right to--(i) inspection of work, documents,
records; (ii) taking notes, extracts, or certified copies of documents or records; (iii)

taking certified samples of material; and (iv) obtaining information in the form of
diskettes, floppies, tapes, video cassettes or in any other electronic mode or
through printouts where such information is stored in a computer or in any other
device.
17. Similarly, Section 3 of the Act escalates that subject to the
provisions of this Act, all citizens shall have the right to information and
obligations of public authorities to maintain all its record is listed in Section 4 of
the Act. Every person is entitled to information, as per procedure prescribed under
Section 6 of the Act and his request will be disposed of by the competent
authorities under Section 7 of the Act.
18. In the same sequence, proviso to Section 8 of the Act envisaged that
the information, which cannot be denied to the Parliament or the State Legislature,
shall not be denied to any person.
19. A co-joint reading of the aforesaid provisions will leave no manner
of doubt that every information is not exempted. Only those informations,
pertaining to commercial confidence, trade secrets or intellectual property, the
disclosure of which would harm the competitive position of a third party, the
information available to a person in his fiduciary relationship, unless the
competent authority is satisfied that the larger public interest warrants the
disclosure of such information and the disclosure of which has no relationship to
any public activity or interest, or which would cause unwarranted invasion of the
privacy of the individual, unless the authorities are satisfied that the larger public
interest justifies the disclosure of such information, are exempted and not
otherwise.
20. To my mind, the information sought by respondent No.2 with regard
to M/s Rajesh Gas Service, an authorized distributor of LPG, such as number of
consumers, who use domestic LPG cylinders with home-delivery, without homedelivery
facilities, for commercial purpose number of LPG cylinders received from

HPCL, LPG Plant, Jind, during the period 1.10.2008 to 31.12.2008 and procedure
of booking system for domestic cylinders etc. cannot possibly be termed either to
be the information of commercial confidence, trade secrets or intellectual property,
the disclosure of which would harm the competitive position of a third party or
available to a person in his fiduciary relationship and the disclosure of which has
no relationship to any public activity or interest, or which would cause
unwarranted invasion of the privacy of the individual. Moreover, the CIC was
satisfied that larger public interest justifies the disclosure of such information.
Since the information sought cannot be denied to the Parliament or the State
Legislature, so, the same cannot also be denied to respondent No.2, as
contemplated in the proviso to section 8 of the Act.
21. In this manner, as the informations sought by respondent No.2
relatable to distributor of LPG, do not squarely fall within the ambit of any clause,
therefore, the petitioner-Corporation cannot claim the exemption, as envisaged
under section 8 (1) (d) (e) and (j) of the Act, as urged on its behalf.
22. Sequelly, the next submission of learned counsel that the information
relatable to a third party cannot be supplied to respondent No.2, without affording
it an opportunity of hearing, is again neither tenable nor the observations of
Gujarat High Court in cases Reliance Industries Ltd. v. Gujarat State Information
Commission & Ors. AIR 2007 Gujarat 203 and Gokalbhai Nanabhai Patel v.
Chief Information Commissioner & Ors. AIR 2008 Gujarat 2 are at all
applicable to the substance of the present case.
23. In Reliance Industries Ltd.'s case (supra), Rasiklal Mardia filed as
many as 55 applications, for getting the following information about the petitioner
and its group of companies:-
“2.2 Informations demanded by the original applicant i.e. Rasiklal
Mardia (in Special Civil Application No.16073 of 2007), are as under:-
“(1) You have recommended for sales tax exemption as per
Government Policy for Reliance Petrochemicals Ltd. and your

department has confirmed that they have complied with terms and
conditions of the Govt. as to local employment etc. Please provide
complete copy, verification report done to the labourers working there
with proof whatever is available with you and whether genuinely local
people are employed is verified or not.
(2) Any complaint received by you that they have not complied
with the local people and false certificate is issued by your office, If yes,
copies of all the correspondence and copy of compliance received by
you.
(3) Year-wise inspection done by your Dept. and confirmation
that local people are continuously checked, confirmed their eligibility
for sales tax exemption benefits and other benefits given to them for
putting up the industry.
(4) If they have not complied with the terms and conditions
whatever action has been initiated by your Dept. and the
recommendations made by your Dept. for action to be taken against the
company for not complying with terms and conditions, entire copy of
the correspondence and present status.
(5) Several people died during the time of construction of Refinery.
Status of that and copy confirming how many people died, action
initiated by your Dept. and the present status of the cases and copy of
the case papers.” (Emphasis supplied)
Thus, the aforesaid informations were demanded by the original
applicant i.e. Rasiklal Mardia.
These informations were pertaining to the petitioner-company
and its group companies.”
24. On the peculiar facts and in the circumstances of those cases, it was
observed that time-bound schedule given under the Act, will not oust a right of
hearing, vested in a third-party before imparting the information, the authorities
are required to satisfy about the credentials of the applicant, has to pass a speaking
order and the third-party rights have to be protected.
The same view was reiterated by the Gujarat High Court in
Gokalbhai Nanabhai Patel's case (supra).
25. Hardly, there is any dispute with regard to the aforesaid observations,
but the same are not at all applicable to the facts of the present case, as the word

“Third-Party” has been defined under Section 2(n) of the Act, to mean a person
other than the citizen making a request for information and includes a public
authority (and not otherwise).
26. What is not disputed here is that the routine/general informations
with respect to booking and supply of domestic and commercial LPG cylinders
with home delivery and without home delivery facilities and other related
information, are already available with M/s Rajesh Gas Service, an authorized
distributor of LPG. Moreover, it is obligatory on the part of every public
authorities to maintain all its records in the manner depicted under section 4 of the
Act. The indicated informations sought are general in nature. Thus, the question of
any commercial confidentiality, trade secrets or intellectual property and
opportunity of hearing to the distributor did not arise at all. As it cannot possibly
be termed to be a third-party, as defined under Section 2 (n) of the Act. To me, if
the arguments of the learned counsel for the petitioner-Corporation are accepted as
such, then no information is permissible, which would certainly nullify the aims
and objects of the Act. Therefore, the contrary arguments of the learned counsel
for the petitioner “stricto sensu” liable to be and are hereby repelled and impugned
order deserves to be and is hereby maintained in the obtaining circumstances of the
case.
27. No other legal point, worth consideration, has either been urged or
pressed by the learned counsel for the petitioner.
28. In the light of aforesaid reasons, as there is no merit, therefore, the
instant writ petition is hereby dismissed as such.
24.1.2011 (MEHINDER SINGH SULLAR)
AS JUDGE
Whether to be referred to reporter? Yes/No

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