[HumJanenge] CIC asks RBI to disclose its inspection reports of banks

I salute Sailesh Gandhi for this BOLD Order, overriding his predecessors.

http://goo.gl/13nfN

CIC asks RBI to disclose its inspection reports of banks
Chetan Chauhan, Hindustan Times, New Delhi, November 02, 2011

In what could open banks for public scrutiny, the Central Information
Commission has asked the country's banking regulator Reserve Bank of
India (RBI) to disclose information regarding inspections of banks
under the transparency law --- Right To Information. Information
Commissioner
Shailesh Gandhi rejected the RBI's claim that if the information
regarding banks was disclosed it could lead to reduction of faith in
banks and it could affect economic interest of the states.

"The idea that citizens are not mature enough to understand and will
panic is repugnant to democracy," Gandhi said, in his order and added
that in over 60 years the citizens have handled their democratic
rights in a mature fashion and have punished leaders who have shown
tendencies of trampling their rights.

Gandhi also took his own commission to task, which had earlier given a
blanket exemption to RBI to decide the information it could disclose
on the ground that it was an expert body to understand implications of
the information for the banking sector.

"If the position of the full bench (of the CIC) is to be accepted…then
all public authorities could be best judge of what information could
be disclosed. In such an event the information commission would have
no role to play," Gandhi said, while hearing an appeal of Jayantilal N
Mistry of Gujarat against RBI.

The commission cannot abdicate its responsibilities under the RTI Act
to RBI on the ground that latter was an expert body, Gandhi said. He
also ruled that CIC's full bench had no powers to review the decision
of former information commissioner M M Ansari, who had asked RBI to
provide complete information relating to performance of banking
sector.

Holding RBI guilty of not reading the full bench decision completely,
Gandhi said it had clearly stated that a larger public interest was
likely to be served by disclosure of such information and RBI should
be proactive in this. "It is unfortunate that the RBI has not taken
any steps to proactively disclosure this information in the last five
year," he said, while asking RBI to disclose information to the
applicant by end of November.

Gandhi was also amused at the RBI's contention that disclosing
information regarding inspection report of a particular bank could
jeopardize economic interests of India. "Declaring the audit,
inspection and investigation reports of all cooperative banks which
have gone into liquidation cannot do any further harm to such banks,"
he said.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/India-news/NewDelhi/CIC-asks-RBI-to-disclose-its-inspection-reports-of-banks/Article1-764092.aspx