An RTI Application to the Mandi Samiti: Auction Sheets, Trader Identity and a Missing Third-Party Notice
A farmer-trader files an RTI application on 3 January with the Krishi Upaj Mandi Samiti asking for four things: (i) certified copies of the paddy auction sheets for the last three months; (ii) the list of traders who purchased in those auctions with the quantity each lifted; (iii) the Aadhaar number, PAN and mobile number of one trader, M; and (iv) the minutes of the board meeting at which the mandi fee was revised. The PIO receives the application on 4 January.
On 20 January a clerk forwards the file to the secretary with a note that item (iii) may be refused because 'it is a private matter' and that item (ii) 'belongs to traders, not farmers'. No notice has been issued to M. The 30-day period ends on 3 February and nothing has been dispatched.
1. Classify each of the four items as disclose, partly disclose or refuse, with reasons.
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(i) Auction sheets - disclose. They are the Samiti's own records of a public function, covered by the proactive-disclosure obligation and by the ordinary rule that records held by a public authority are accessible unless an exemption applies. Issue certified copies.
(ii) Trader names and quantities lifted - disclose. This concerns who received public produce and public money in a regulated market. Commercial confidence protects genuinely confidential commercial information and is itself subject to the larger public interest; transparency in auction is that interest. The clerk's note that the list 'belongs to traders' is wrong - it belongs to the Samiti's records. If any column carries personal contact data, sever it and give the rest.
(iii) Aadhaar, PAN and mobile of M - refuse, with severance. This is personal information unrelated to any public activity, and disclosure would cause unwarranted invasion of privacy. If the Samiti needs to show that M is a licensed trader, give the licence number and firm name, which serve the purpose without exposing identity numbers.
(iv) Board minutes - disclose, except any genuinely exempt portion, which must be severed under the Act with the reasons recorded in writing.
2. State the correct timeline and the procedural step already missed, and explain the consequence of delay for the PIO.
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Timeline
- Request received 4 January; ordinary limit 30 days, that is 3 February.
- Because item (iii) is third-party personal information, the third-party procedure applies: written notice to M within 5 days of receipt, that is by 9 January, inviting a representation within 10 days.
- The PIO must then decide within 40 days of receipt of the request, that is by 12 February.
What was missed. No notice to M was issued, and the file was left with a clerk until 20 January. The 5-day notice window has already lapsed. That is a procedural breach, not a ground for refusal.
Consequence of delay. If no decision issues in time the request is treated as refused, and the applicant may file a first appeal within 30 days and a second appeal within 90 days to the Information Commission. The Commission can order disclosure, and the PIO is exposed to a penalty of Rs 250 per day of delay up to Rs 25,000 unless the delay was reasonable and bona fide.
Practical course: issue notice to M immediately, decide items (i), (ii) and (iv) at once with a written order, and record reasons for severing (iii).
3. The applicant is a competing trader. If his real object is to obtain M's customer list, does that change the decision?
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Motive does not defeat the right, but it feeds the exemptions.
- An applicant need not disclose a reason, and a commercial competitor is entitled to the same access as anyone else. Refusing because the motive looks commercial would itself be a bad order.
- The exemptions keep their force: the PIO must still ask whether disclosure harms commercial confidence or privacy, and may sever. The privacy ground for (iii) is unaffected by who is asking.
- The larger-public-interest test is applied to the information, not to the applicant. If the auction sheets reveal a cartel buying low, the public interest in disclosure is the same whoever asks. If the only effect is to hand one trader a competitor's customer list, that is a factor to be weighed on the trader-list portion, but it is not a reason to refuse the auction sheets.
The decision therefore stays as in (i) to (iv); what changes is that the order must set out the balancing reasoning for item (ii) explicitly, so it survives appeal.