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1 - 5 of 5 (0.19 seconds)The Freedom Of Information Act, 2002
Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. vs Shri Chander Sekhar on 23 March, 2012
If it were to be held that a bidder by
virtue of participating in the tender becomes entitled to all particulars in
the bids of all the bidders, the possibility of unscrupulous businessmen
participating in the tender merely for acquiring such information, cannot
be ruled out. Such disclosure may lead to the competitors undercutting
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in future bids. We may at this stage notice that the Freedom of
Information Act prevalent in United States of America as well as
the Freedom of Information Act, 2000 in force in United Kingdom, both
carve out an exception qua trade secrets and commercial or financial
information obtained from a person and which is privileged or
confidential. The tests laid down in those jurisdictions also, is of "if
disclosure of information is likely to impair government's ability to obtain
necessary information in future or to cause substantial harm to
competitive position of person from whom information is obtained‟. It
has been held that unless persons having necessary information are
assured that it will remain confidential, they may decline to cooperate
with officials and the ability of government to make intelligent well-
informed decisions will be impaired. Yet another test of whether the
information submitted with the bids is confidential or not is of "whether
such information is generally available for public perusal" and of
whether such information "is customarily made available to the public
by the business submitter". If it is not so customarily made available, it
is treated as confidential.
Section 11 in The Right to Information Act, 2005 [Entire Act]
Bsnl vs Abnash Chander And Ors Retired Telecom ... on 11 December, 2018
"2. The matter was accordingly examined and placed before the
Commission. I am directed to convey that you should, within 2 weeks of
receipt of this order, provide to the Appellant the limited information i.e.
financial quotation/price quoted by the third party firms in the subject
tender as disclosure of it would not inflict any harm to the competitive
position of third party firms at this stage when the contract has already
expired. As regards the remaining information concerning Technical Bid
and Commercial Bid, it was observed that your decision (conveyed to the
Appellant, Shri Mathew Thomas by letter No. F-120131096120121RT1-
UIDAI dated 20.12.2013) to deny this information to the Appellant after
following the third party information procedure laid down in Section 11(1)
of the RTI Act was in conformity with the High Court of Delhi in BSNL v.
Chander Sekhar; LPA No. 900/2010; date of decision 23.03.2012;
Commission's Full Bench decision dated 20.05.2013 in Kuljit Singh and
Anr. v. PFCL; and Commission's decision dated 01.09.2014 in Ajay
Chadha v. Charak Palika Hospital, NDMC; date of decision 01.9.2014;
Appeal No. CIC/DS/A/2O13/001664-YA and CIC/DS/A/2013/001684-
YA. Moreover, the Appellant has not established any larger public interest
warranting the disclosure of information in question. Therefore, there shall
be no disclosure with regard to the information concerning the Technical
Bid and Commercial Bid as it falls under the exemption category of Section
8(1)(d) of the RTI Act..."
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