SEBI Appellate Authority upholds rejection of RTI appeal, ruling that non-availability of PACL-related information cannot compel creation of records.
SEBI Rejects RTI Appeal on Grounds of Non-Accessible PACL Data
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) Appellate Authority dismissed an appeal under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, affirming that public authorities are not obligated to generate or create information that does not already exist. The appeal challenged the Central Public Information Officer’s (CPIO) refusal to provide data relating to the recovery and distribution proceedings in the PACL matter.
The appellate body observed that the RTI Act imposes no duty to furnish speculative or reconstructed data.
"An authority cannot be directed to invent information or compile records de novo merely to satisfy an RTI request,"the order stated, citing precedents under Section 2(g) of the RTI Act, 2005. The decision clarifies the limits of transparency obligations in complex financial rehabilitation cases where granular investor-level data may not be readily available post-liquidation.
Practitioners should note that while access to information is a statutory right, it remains subject to the physical existence and retrievability of records, especially in legacy regulatory matters involving defunct entities.
Citations
- Right to Information Act, 2005, Section 2(g)
