“Under S.19(1) of the RTI Act an aggrieved person may prefer the first appeal within thirty days from the receipt of the response from the CPIO of the concerned public authority.”: SEBI, Part 3.
In this context, reference is made to the matter of Shri S.P. Goyal vs. Shri Pragati Kumar & Ors. (order dated January 24, 2008), wherein the Hon’ble CIC held that “Further, the obligation of a respondent extends only to providing information which it “holds” or controls in terms of Section 2(f) of the RTI Act. If it can be established through evidence that a party/ applicant himself possesses an information which he has sought from a public authority, such information can be denied to him. This appellant has already been provided the judgement dated 30.3.2007 of the Income Tax Appellate Authority. The information, therefore, is already in appellant’s possession and cannot therefore be said to be “held”-much less “exclusively held”-by the public authority in terms of Section 2(j) of the RTI Act.”
In view of these observations, Mr Baiwar is of the view that the respondent is not obliged to provide the information sought by the appellant. Without prejudice to the same, it was noted that the respondent has guided the appellant to approach the concerned stock exchange. Accordingly, the query number 1 of the application is adequately addressed. Therefore, no deficiency was found in the response by the appellate authority.
On consideration of query number 2, Appellate Authority did not find any reason to disbelieve the observation of the respondent that the information sought is not available with SEBI. In this context, it was noted that the Hon’ble CIC in the matter of Sh. Pattipati Rama Murthy vs. CPIO, SEBI (Decision dated July 8, 2013), held: “… if it (SEBI) does not have any such information in its possession, the CPIO cannot obviously invent one for the benefit of the Appellant. There is simply no information to be given.” In view of these observations, it was found that the information sought by the appellant was not available with SEBI and therefore, the respondent cannot be obliged to provide such non–available information.
After perusal of query numbers 3 and 4 and the response provided thereto. It was noted that the respondent has clearly informed regarding the availability of the IGRP order on the SCORES Portal since the complaint was lodged on the said portal.
Further, the appellant was also advised to directly approach the exchange for the requisite data pertaining to the exchange. On consideration, it was also found that the respondent has adequately addressed the queries by providing the information available with him. Accordingly, Mr Baiwar did not find any deficiency in the response.
In view of the above-made observations, the Appeal was accordingly dismissed since the appellate authority found that there was no need to interfere with the decision of the respondent. The Appeal is accordingly disposed of.