Supreme Court dismisses banks’ plea for exemption from RTI law

NEW DELHI: A last ditch attempt made by banks to get exemption from the Right to Information Act failed with the Supreme Court refusing to recall its order by which RBI was directed to disclose information about functioning of financial institutions under the transparency law.
Nearly six years after the SC ruled that RBI had to reveal information about functioning of banks under the Act, major banks, including SBI and HDFC, had urged the SC to recall its order, saying they can’t reveal confidential information of account holders.
A batch of senior advocates, including SG Tushar Mehta, Harish Salve and Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for the banks, told the court that the banking industry could be adversely affected and the SC’s order might be misused for corporate rivalry. But a bench of Justices L Nageswara Rao and Vineet Saran turned down their plea. “No effort was made by any of the applicants to get themselves impleaded... The applications styled as recall are essentially applications for review,” the bench said adding that the plea of the banks was not maintainable.