Punjab-Haryana High Court
M/S Hindustan Petroleum Corporation ... vs The Central Information Commission And ... on 7 March, 2011
Author: Hemant Gupta
Bench: Hemant Gupta
IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT
CHANDIGARH
LPA No.398 of 2011 (O&M)
Date of Decision: 7.3.2011
M/s Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd. .....Appellant
Versus
The Central Information Commission and others ....Respondent
CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE HEMANT GUPTA
HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE ARVIND KUMAR
1. Whether Reporters of local papers may be allowed to see the judgment?
2. To be referred to the Reporters or not?
3. Whether the judgment should be reported in the Digest?
Present: Shri Anil Malhotra, Advocate, for the appellant.
Hemant Gupta, J.
Challenge in the present Letters Patent Appeal is to an order passed by the learned Single Bench on 24.1.2011, whereby challenge to an order passed by the Chief Information Commissioner, Haryana on 4.1.2011, remained unsuccessful.
Respondent No.2-Khushi Ram, sought information from the appellant herein pertaining to one M/s Rajesh Gas Service, an authorized distributor of the Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), by invoking the provisions of the Right to Information Act, 2005 (the RTI LPA No.398 of 2011 (O&M) (
2) Act). The information sought is in respect of the domestic and commercial consumers, including their names and addresses.
The Chief Information Commissioner, Haryana (for short `the CIC'), held that the consumers are beneficiaries of the subsidized cooking gas provided by the appellant. It was further held that information regarding any subsidy or concession given by the Government, should be 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. It was further held that the appellant, as public authority, itself is required by law to publish the details of all such recipients. Therefore, a list of such recipients cannot be kept back withheld so as to treat the list of recipients as commercial in this case. The CIC held that 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.
Before the learned Single Judge, the appellant relied upon a Division Bench judgment of this Court reported as Rajan Verma v. Union of India, Ministry of Finance, Banking Division, New Delhi, 2008(1) PLR 253, wherein the details of the account holders of a Bank were found to be relating to consumers' confidence and exempt within the meaning of Section 8(1)(d) of the RTI Act. The reliance on the said judgment was negated as the information sought in the aforesaid case was in respect of the details of the accounts of private individuals and concerns and not the list of the account holders. The judgments reported as 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, were found to be not applicable to the facts of the present case.
LPA No.398 of 2011 (O&M) (
3)
Before this Court, Shri Anil Malhotra, learned counsel for the appellant, has reiterated the arguments, as were raised before the learned Single Bench and also relied upon the judgments, which were relied upon by the appellant before the learned Single Bench. It is argued that the disclosure of information will enable the competitors of the appellant to mislead the existing consumers, which will not be in commercial interest of the appellant.
We have considered the arguments raised by the learned counsel for the parties, but find that the view taken by the learned Single Bench is perfectly justified and advance the object of the enactment of the RTI Act.
Section 8(1)(d) & (j) and Section 11 of the RTI Act, read as under:-
"8. Exemption from disclosure of information.-(1) Notwithstanding anything contained in this Act, there shall be no obligation to give any citizen,-
(a) to (c) 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) to (i) xx xx xx
(j) Information which relates to personal information 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 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.
11. Third-party information.--(1) Where a Central Public Information Officer or a State Public Information Officer, as the case may be, intends to disclose any information or record, or part thereof on a request made LPA No.398 of 2011 (O&M) (
4) under this Act, which relates to or has been supplied by a third party and has been treated as confidential by that third party, the Central Public Information Officer or State Public Information Officer, as the case may be, shall, within five days from the receipt of the request, give a written notice to such third party and of the fact that the Central Public Information Officer or State Public Information Officer, as the case may be, intends to disclose the information or record, or part thereof, and invite the third party to make a submission, written or oral, regarding whether the information should be disclosed, and such submission of the third party shall be kept in view while taking a decision about disclosure of information:
Provided that except in the case of trade or commercial secrets protected by law, disclosure may be allowed if the public interest in disclosure outweighs in importance any possible harm or injury to the interests of such third party".
The contention of the appellant that the disclosure of the information in respect of the names and addresses of the commercial and domestic consumers is commercially confidential and that consumers of the appellant would be amenable to the competitors is wholly untenable. We are of the considered view that disclosure of such information is in larger public interest. The consumers have legitimate expectations to obtain the services from the Company providing better and efficient services. The names and addresses of the consumers is not commercial information. It is a relationship of supplier and purchaser. The names and address of the consumers are not confidential. The information in respect of the names and addresses is available in many public documents. The names and addresses are not necessarily supplied by third party as the names and addresses of the citizens of this country are in public domain. It is not personal information. Transparency is the watchword in a free market. Still further, the Central Government is giving subsidy for the LPA No.398 of 2011 (O&M) (
5) sale of the LPG. The information in respect of the consumers, who are availing the subsidy, is in the larger public interest as well. The pros and cons of such a disclosure are required to be weighed. Since, there is more benefit than harm from disclosure of the names and address of the consumers, the said list cannot remain confidential merely out of an apprehension that the same could be used against the appellant by its competitors.
The "commercial confidence" can be said to be information received by a public authority in a fiduciary capacity. The names and addresses of the consumers of a distributor have nothing to do with the fiduciary relationship. The expression, commercial confidence has to be read ejusdem generis with the other expressions "trade secrets or intellectual property" mentioned in Sections 8(1)(d) of the RTI Act. In Maharashtra University of Health Sciences v. Satchikitsa Prasarak Mandal,(2010) 3 SCC 786, the court said:
"27. The Latin expression "ejusdem generis" which means "of the same kind or nature" is a principle of construction, meaning thereby when general words in a statutory text are flanked by restricted words, the meaning of the general words are taken to be restricted by implication with the meaning of the restricted words. This is a principle which arises "from the linguistic implication by which words having literally a wide meaning (when taken in isolation) are treated as reduced in scope by the verbal context". It may be regarded as an instance of ellipsis, or reliance on implication. This principle is presumed to apply unless there is some contrary indication [see Glanville Williams, The Origins and Logical Implications of the Ejusdem Generis Rule, 7 Conv (NS) 119].
28. This ejusdem generis principle is a facet of the principle of noscitur a sociis. The Latin maxim noscitur a sociis contemplates that a statutory term is recognised by its associated words. The Latin word "sociis" means "society". Therefore, when general words are juxtaposed LPA No.398 of 2011 (O&M) (
6) with specific words, general words cannot be read in isolation. Their colour and their contents are to be derived from their context. (See similar observations of Viscount Simonds in Attorney General v. Prince Ernest Augustus of Hanover (1957) 1 All ER 49 (HL)".
Thus we find that commercial confidence is the expression which denotes, information which is confidential or personal or something which is known only to the person to whom the information relates and is above all commercial in nature. Therefore, we find that the information sought does not fall within Section 8(1)(d) or (j) of the RTI Act.
It is also argued that the consumers are the third party as against the person, who has sought information and, therefore, any information relating to third party, cannot be disclosed without hearing such third party in terms of Section 11 of the RTI Act.
We do not find any merit in the said argument as well. Section 11 of the RTI Act, prescribes the information, which relates to or has been supplied by a third party and has been treated as confidential by such third party cannot be disclosed without notice to such party. The names and addresses is not the information for which the third party is required to be heard. There is no allegation that any of the consumers of the public authority has declared that their names and addresses be treated as confidential.
In view of the above, we do not find any merit in the present Letters Patent appeal. Hence, the same is dismissed.
(Hemant Gupta) Judge (Arvind Kumar) Judge 7.3.2011 ds