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The top court warned the central bank that it was being given one last chance to comply with a 2015 order to withdraw its disclosure policy. The Supreme Court on Friday told the Reserve Bank of India to withdraw its disclosure policy and make public the list of defaulters and its annual inspection reports, Bar and Bench reported.
The Bench comprising of Justice Nageswara Rao and Justice MR Shah was delivering the Judgment in a contempt petition filed by RTI activist Subhash Chandra Agrawal against Reserve Bank of India (RBI) alleging willful disobedience to the specific directions issued by the court in Reserve Bank of India Vs Jayantilal N Mistry and others. The activist challenged the RBI’s directive to its public information officers to not disclose almost any information, even the kind that the Supreme Court asks to be released. A bench of Justices L Nageswara Rao and MR Shah said it was giving the central bank one last opportunity to comply with its 2015 order on disclosures under the Right to Information Act, ANI reported. Any more violations will result in serious contempt of court proceedings, the judges added.
In the 2015 judgement court had held that the RBI was not in a fiduciary relation with individual banks as it does not hold such information in “trust” with such banks. Withholding such information would be detrimental to the nation’s economic interest of the nation, it had added.
The Supreme Court rejected the grounds for denial of information as baseless and directed the RBI to disclose information sought by the RTI applicant in that case. It was held that the RBI was not in fiduciary relation with these individual banks, as it did not hold such information in 'trust' with such banks. Further, withholding rather than disclosing of such information would be detrimental to the economic interest of the nation, it held.
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