SC paves way for RTI against institutions, hospitals & NGOs

Source: DNA dated 18.9.2019

By Abraham Thomas

Citizens’ right to know took a big leap on Tuesday after the Supreme Court held that NGOs and public bodies having financial transactions with the government will have to provide information under the Right to Information Act.

The ruling is likely to force several hospitals and educational institutions to come clean on their affairs. These organisations had so far secured immunity from RTI taking advantage of the loosely worded definition of “public authority”.

Under the Act, a public authority is one which is established by or under the Constitution, a Central or state law, or by an executive notification issued by any government. It also covers any “body owned, controlled or substantially financed” or “NGO substantially financed”.

The court injected clarity as it heard a batch of appeals by the DAV College Trust and Managing Society of Chandigarh and two colleges of Kerala - Sree Narayana College and Mar Dionysius Trust against orders of the High Courts of Punjab & Haryana and Kerala.

A bench of Justices Deepak Gupta and Aniruddha Bose said, “We have no hesitation in holding that an NGO substantially financed, directly or indirectly, by funds provided by the appropriate government, would be a public authority amenable to the provisions of the RTI Act.”

The judges went on to elaborate, “A society which may not be owned or controlled by the government may be an NGO but if it is substantially financed directly or indirectly by the government, it would fall within the ambit of Section 2(h)(ii).”

According to the court, “substantial” did not necessarily have to mean “major portion or more than 50 per cent” but could be in the form of “land in a city given for free or on heavy discount to hospitals, educational institutions or such other body”.
In the case of DAV, the SC found that they annually received a grant of over Rs 15-19 crore, which in its opinion was substantial. In the case of remaining colleges, the judges left it for the High Court to determine whether they would fall in the bracket of “substantial financing”.
Justice Gupta said that the purpose of the Act was to bring about transparency and probity in public life. “If NGOs or other bodies get substantial finance from the Government, we find no reason why any citizen cannot ask for information to find out whether his/her money which has been given to an NGO or any other body is being used for the requisite purpose or not.”

Opinion of Shailesh Gandhi, former central information commissioner:

Transparency for public fundsThe position in the RTI Act that private organisations and NGOs which are substantially funded by government are public authorities and are covered by the RTI Act has been very clear since the beginning of the law. Almost all adjudicatory bodies were accepting this. The private organisations in this case appeared to have represented a very convoluted meaning of the words of the law which has been rightly struck down by the SC. The key principle of RTI is that wherever public money is involved, citizens have the right to know.