Apka Adhikar

The Gujarat info commission in an elaborate decision ruled that ALL cooperative societies are public authorities under the rti act and therefore obliged to give information to any requisitioner (irrespective of membership of the society).
This is the first commission that has given such bold decision. The central and most state commissions have avoided being this bold and forthright.
As you are aware, a private organisation (described as non-government organisation in the act) comes under the RTI act if
a) it can be proved that it is ‘controlled’ by the government’
b) it receives ‘substantial’ assistance - direct or indirect - from the government

Most commissions have overlooked ‘a’ and have dwelt only on ‘b’ , where substantial has not been defined and left to the interpretation by every individual commission.
As a result, most private bodies, particularly the powerful cooperatives, have escaped their obligation under the RTI act. The principle can also be extended to public trusts and even corporates. But most relevant are powerful cooperatives. One is not really much concerned with public trusts and very few corporates can come under RTI. So the first focus has to be on the cooperative.
There is rampant mismanagement among several cooperative banks and the middle class investors have lost their hard earned savings. Functioning of several production units in the cooperative sector is questionable. You have heard of cooperative sugar factories in Maharashtra.
So the blanket application of RTI to ALL cooperatives is bound to alarm all vested interests. Cooperatives affected by the decision of the Gujarat info commission rushed to the Ahmedabad high court during the vacation and succeeded in getting a stay on the decision from a vacation. Now the matter has come up before a regular bench after the vacation.
The stay is bound to affect requisitioners from all over the country, because all state info commissions are bound to cite it whenever somebody seeks information from a cooperative body citing the info commission interpretation that it is a public body because it is ‘controlled’ by the government. Ruling of the Gujarat high court may not be applicable elsewhere, but info commissions are known to play it safe.
The legal battle in Gujarat, therefore, to me is a legal battle for RTI requisioners from all over the country.
I therefore advised our friends in Gujarat to avail of the best of legal talents to represent the requisitioners who have been affected by the interim stay order of the high court. They have identified such requisitioners for support and have also identified senior counsels. Simultaneously, I gave a call for financial support to our Gujarat friends. More than the amount, what matters is solidarity. But eve even the amount is not totally insignificant. We cannot allow our case to get weakened for want of strong representation.

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BACKGROUND

Disposing of 28 complaints and appeals, the state Chief Information
Commissioner of Gujarat Mr R N Das on may 15, 2005, gave a decision/order that all cooperative societies are public authorities under the RTI Act (irrespective of whether substantially aided or not):

Decision/Order.

(i) All co-operative societies registered under the Gujarat State
Co-operative Societies Act, 1961 are bodies controlled falling within the ambit of the definition of “public authority” given at section 2(h)(i) of the Right to Information Act, 2005 and, therefore, are public authorities.

(ii) All Co-operative banks since all such banks are registered as
co-operative societies are also bodies controlled falling within the ambit of the definition of “public authority” given at section 2(h)(i) of the Right to Information Act, 2005 and, therefore, are public authorities.

(iii) In view of the above decision, all co-operative societies and
co-operative banks are required to abide by the relevant provisions of the Right to Information Act, 2005 particularly, Chapter II thereof, dealing with obligations of public authorities, including providing information to the citizen subject to the provisions contained in section 8 (1), 9 and 10 of the Right to Information Act, 2005.

Full text of the 43-page order has been uploaded by Vishal Kudchadkar

Click here to view the full text: Gujurat SIC Decision
Ten days later, on may 25, 2007, the vacation bench of the Gujarat High Court, in response to three civil applications, granted ad interim stay to the Info Commission order.

Full text of the high court order is quoted below

SCA/13457/2007 3/3 ORDER

IN THE HIGH COURT OF GUJARAT AT AHMEDABAD

SPECIAL CIVIL APPLICATION No. 13457 of 2007

WITH

SPECIAL CIVIL APPLICATION NO.13458 OF 2007

WITH

SPECIAL CIVIL APPLICATION NO.13459 OF 2007

=========================================================

GUJARAT URBAN CO-OPERATIVE BANK FEDRATION & 1 - Petitioner(s)

Versus

GUJARAT INFORMATION COMMISSION
BUREAU OF ECONOMICS & STATIS-

& 2 - Respondent(s)

=========================================================
Appearance :
MR TUSHAR MEHTA for Petitioner
None for Respondent(s) : 1, 3,
GOVERNMENT PLEADER for Respondent(s) : 2,
=========================================================

CORAM :

HONOURABLE MS.JUSTICE H.N.DEVANI

Date : 25/05/2007

ORAL ORDER

Heard learned Advocate Mr.Tushar Mehta for the petitioners in each of these petitions.

The learned Advocate has drawn attention of the Court to the definition of â¬Spublic authorityâ¬ý as defined under Section 2(h) of the Right to Information Act, 2005, which reads as under :

S2(h) “public authority” means any authority or body or institution of self-government established or constituted -

[a] by or under the Constitution;

[b] by any other law made by Parliament;

[c] by any other law made by the State Legislature;

[d] by notification issued or order made by the appropriate Government, and includes any -

[i] body owned, controlled or substantially financed;

[ii] non-Government organization substantially financed, directly or
indirectly by funds provided by the appropriate Government;â¬ý

It is pointed out that, insofar as the Cooperative Societies registered under the Cooperative Societies Act are concerned, the same do not fall within any of the categories enumerated thereunder. However, insofar as the impugned order passed by the Chief Information Commissioner, Gujarat State , Gandhinagar is concerned, the relevant category would be [c] i.e. any authority or body or institution of self-government established or constituted by any other law made by the State Legislature. Referring to para 7 of the impugned order passed by the Chief Information Commissioner, it was pointed out that the authority has held that it is immaterial whether the cooperative society is established or constituted by or under the statute. It is submitted that the basic reasoning of the authority is fallacious. Learned advocate has submitted that a body or institution of self-government established or constituted by any other law made by the State Legislature can never be construed to mean as having been established by or under such law.

In view of the above discussion, Rule returnable on 18th June, 2007.
Ad-interim relief in terms of paragraph 6(D) till then. Direct service is permitted today.

The Registry is directed to keep a copy of this order in each matter.

[HARSHA DEVANI, J.]

The matter is coming up on June 18th - the first day after the vacation. I have been insisting that RTI crusaders from Ahmedabad seek the support of a senior counsel to defend at least one of the respondents from among the original (and aggrieved) requisitioners of information, who have been impleaded by the petitioners in the high court, as the court matter stands to affect all RTI users in the country.

The high court stay will surely be quoted by all info commissions in the country in most probably upholding second appeals against denial of information to citizens from cooperatives.

Ahmedabad-based RTI crusaders led by Harineshbhai and the respondents in the matter, accordingly have approached a senior counsel who has agreed to take up the matter.

as I said, details are awaited from Rahul in ahmedabad.

—

Shri Harineshbhai and Rahul Mangaonkar from Aahmedabad informed me this evening that they have succeeded in getting the support of a senior counsel to take up the matter on behalf of aggrieved requisitioners. However, the total cost of taking up the litigation is expected to be Rs 100 k. (that is what i had expected, anyway).

This is an appeal to everyone. Look at this as your own case. Let us try to raise as much funds as possible to cover, as far as possible, the entire cost, so that our Gujrat friends can have spare capacity to take the legal battle further, if circumstances force.

The funds generated by us ideally should go to them directly. i am awaiting detailed advice from ahmedabad on formalities.in the meantime, pl treat this as an alert. those offering any contributing may pl write immediately to rahul on mail4rahul@gmail.com
with a copy to me: prakash.kardaley@gmail.com

regards

Rahul Mangaonkar wrote on june 15
Dear Fellow RTI Crusaders,

To begin with on behalf of MAGP, its member organizations, individuals and institutions thank you for the offer of support to fight to fight the legal battles in the Gujarat High Court on RTI issues. These are well appreciated, and accepted humbly, on both counts of, moral as well as the financial resources offered.

Financial assistance may please be made out by way of demand draft in favor of, ‘Janpath’, (payable in Ahmedabad)…and to be sent to;

Mahiti Adhikar Gujarat Pahel
C/o Janpath
B/3, Sahjanand Towers
Jivraj Park
Ahmedabad 380 051
Gujarat, India

Prakash kardaley wrote on june 29:
Contributions are trickling in. three have sent. Pl forgive me if I have missed out any name. Rrahul may please give us an update. contributions sent by: Sandeep Jalan, Mumbai, Anil Heble, Delhi, Sridhar Chakravarthy, Bangalore , I am sending mine tomorrow.
Rahul mangaonkar wrote on june 30 on hum janenge board
Ajay Marathe and Pravin Dali also have sent mails that they are sending drafts…

Rahul

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UPDATE:
A senior counsel from Ahmedabad is representing a respondent cooperative society backed by RTI crusaders.
The cousel on June 18 sought further time to study the matter and come forth with his defence.