What is Third Party Information under RTI ?

Question

1-Muthoot Finance was originally incorporated as a private limited company on March 14, 1997 with the name “The Muthoot Finance Private Limited” under the Companies Act.
2-Subsequently, by fresh certificate of incorporation dated May 16, 2007, its name was changed to “Muthoot Finance Private Limited”.
3-The company was converted into a public limited company on November 18, 2008 with the name “Muthoot Finance Limited” and received a fresh certificate of incorporation consequent upon change in status on December 02, 2008 from the RoC.
4-It is registered NBFC with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
5-RBI tags Muthoot Finance as ‘upper layer’, on par with public sector NBFCs
6-Muthooth Finance Ltd. is regulated by Reserve Bank Of india
The Right to Information Act 2005 (RTI ACT) was enacted to obtain information from the Public Authority which is defined under Section 2 (h) of the Act. The provisions of the Act are only related with the information to be obtained from public authorities. The Act is not applicable on private companies. However the information of the private company can be obtained from its regulator if so.Relevant provisions in the Act in support of the same are as follows:-

1. Preamble of the Act reads as under :-
   “An act to provide for setting out the practical regime of right to information for citizens to secure access to information under the control of public authorities, in order to promote transparency and accountability in the working of every Public Authority, the Constitution of the Central Information Commission and State Information Commissions and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto. Whereas …”

2 . Definition of Information Section 2 (f) of the Act reads as under :-
“Information” means any material in any form, including records, documents, memos, e-mails, opinions, advices, press releases, circulars, orders, logbooks, contracts, reports, papers, samples, models, data material held in any electronic form and information relating to any private body which can be accessed by a public authority under any other law for the time being in force.
Pl. comment on the above lines. RBI, being a regulatory authority is liable to furnish the information under RTI Act.

Answer 1

According to Section 2 (n) of the RTI Act, 2005, 'Third Party' means a person other than the citizen making a request for information and includes a 'Public Authority'. Which means that when any individual requests for the personal information of any other person like salary details,caste certificate, IT returns etc are considered to be third party information. Under section 11 of the RTI Act the requests of third party information are rejected.