The Delhi High Court on Tuesday indicated that the mere fact of governmental management or control did not, by itself, extinguish an entity’s entitlement to informational privacy under the Right to Information Act, 2005.
The Division Bench of Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Tejas Karia observed that even assuming the PM CARES Fund was administered or overseen by the State, it would not automatically forfeit the statutory protections available to third parties against disclosure of personal information under the RTI framework.
It clarified that its observations were confined to the limited statutory notion of privacy embodied in Section 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act, and not the broader constitutional right to privacy emanating from Article 21 of the Constitution, as recognised in Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) v. Union of India.
The Bench underscored that Section 8(1)(j) creates an exemption against disclosure of personal or third-party information where no overriding public interest is demonstrated, and that this protection is not diluted merely because the concerned entity discharges public functions or is subject to State supervision.
The Court emphasised that a juristic person does not lose its distinct legal personality or its statutory entitlements under the RTI Act simply by being classified as a public authority. It reasoned that the legislative scheme of the RTI Act does not draw a qualitative distinction between public and private entities when it comes to third-party rights. Whether the third party is an individual, trust, society, cooperative body or association, the procedural safeguards under Sections 8 and 11 of the Act apply uniformly. In this context, the Bench noted that disclosure of information relating to a trust or society—such as one running an educational institution or a sports body—cannot be ordered without adherence to the third-party consultation mechanism, irrespective of the public character of its activities.
The Bench was hearing an intra-court appeal arising from proceedings seeking disclosure of information furnished by the PM CARES Fund to the Income Tax Department while claiming exemptions under the Income Tax Act, 1961. The Central Information Commission had earlier directed the disclosure of the requested material. That direction, however, was set aside by a Single Judge of the High Court.
In a judgment delivered in January 2024, the single-judge Bench held that the Central Information Commission lacked jurisdiction to mandate disclosure of information governed by Section 138 of the Income Tax Act, which specifically regulated confidentiality and controlled disclosure of tax-related information. It further ruled that Section 138(2) of the Income Tax Act would prevail over the RTI Act by virtue of its special statutory character, notwithstanding the overriding clause in Section 22 of the RTI Act. This reasoning drew upon established principles of statutory interpretation, including the doctrine that a later or more specific enactment may prevail over a general law in cases of conflict.
Aggrieved by this decision, RTI applicant Girish Mittal preferred an appeal before the Division Bench. During the hearing, counsel for the appellant contended that the PM CARES Fund does not fall within the protective ambit of Section 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act and argued that a public charitable trust constituted by the government cannot assert informational privacy under the statute. It was further submitted that the confidentiality regime under Section 138 of the Income Tax Act would, in any event, be overridden by Section 22 of the RTI Act.
The Bench, while considering these submissions, reiterated that the RTI Act recognises privacy interests of third parties as a statutory exemption, an approach consistent with earlier Supreme Court jurisprudence such as Girish Ramchandra Deshpande v. Central Information Commissioner and CBSE v. Aditya Bandopadhyay, which underscore the need to balance transparency with legitimate confidentiality interests.
After hearing the appellant’s arguments, the Division Bench adjourned the matter for further consideration on February 10. The Additional Solicitor General is expected to advance submissions on behalf of the Income Tax Department on the next date of hearing.
The post Delhi High Court affirms statutory privacy protection for PM CARES Fund under RTI Act appeared first on India Legal.