Dragged to courts by stock exchanges, Central Information Commission now wants the Supreme Court to resolve whether bourses can be brought under the purview of the Right to Information Act or not.
"One case is in the Bombay High Court and one case is in the Delhi High Court (over the issue of bringing bourses under the transparency legislation). We are now moving to get those cases transferred to the Supreme Court," chief information Commissioner Wajahat Habibullah told PTI.
The Commission, in response to RTI applications, held in September that stock exchanges are 'public authority' within the meaning of the RTI Act 2005 and would have to comply with the provisions of the transparency legislation.
The decision, however, did not go down well with the Bombay Stock Exchange and National Stock Exchange, which in separate petitions challenged it in the Bombay High Court and Delhi High Court respectively.
Elaborating on the stand of the Commission, Habibullah said: "SEBI strongly argued for the decision we gave, some stock exchanges argued against it. Now, what will happen in that case I do not know."
When asked whether a stock exchange such as BSE, which is not a government body, will fall within the definition of a public authority, he clarified: "A public authority means any authority, body or institution of self government established or constituted by the Constitution, any law made by Parliament or state legislature by any notification made by appropriate government."
"It would also include any body owned, controlled or substantially financed directly or indirectly by funds provided by the government," Habibullah said.
"All stock exchanges are created by orders of SEBI. In passing the orders of registering the stock exchanges, it is exercising the authority of the government," he added.
Earlier in June, CIC had ruled that stock exchanges come under the RTI purview and had asked all the bourses to comply to the RTI rules within three months.
A bench headed by Habibullah had termed the government's control over the functioning of stock exchanges as pervasive and said that bourses can not be exempted from sharing information under the provisions of the Act.
While SEBI has supported CIC's contention that stock exchanges are quasi-government bodies and should be brought under the RTI Act, finance ministry's department of economic affairs (DEA) differed with this opinion.
Currently, any request for information from the stock exchanges has to be routed through SEBI. SEBI has earlier said in its submission to the CIC that despite stock exchanges' independent operations, they ought to be classified as public authority as they can start business only if they are notified by the government.
The RTI Act defines a public authority as one that is created by a notification issued by the government or a law passed by the Parliament.
