The order was issued in connection with an appeal filed seeking information about all communication received by the market regulator from the capital markets division of the finance ministry

MS Sahoo, whole-time member of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has been issued a show-cause notice by the Central Information Commission asking him to show cause as to why an appellant should not be paid Rs25,000 as compensation for the detriment caused to her on account of the perfunctory manner in which her Right to Information (RTI) application and appeal was heard and disposed of.
 
Information Commissioner AN Tiwari issued the order in connection with an appeal filed by Seema Kashyap to SEBI seeking information about all communication received by the market regulator from the capital markets division of the finance ministry on norms for approval of new stock exchanges, currency derivatives, SME exchange, interest-rate derivatives, corporate bond markets and ownership guidelines for stock exchanges.
 
Ms Kashyap received a reply from the Central Public Information Officer (CPIO). However, not satisfied with the reply, she then moved the Appellate Authority. The Authority rejected her plea that the information disclosed had no relation to what had been requested. Ms Kashyap then approached the Central Information Commission claiming that what was supplied by SEBI by way of information was "nothing more than a bunch of irrelevant letters and news items having no relation to the information sought." During the hearing, Ms Kashyap pointed out that rather than provide her the particular information she sought, the CPIO went on a tangent giving out a plethora of entirely unrelated information and surprisingly, the Appellate Authority approved the CPIO's action.
 
In an order, the Information Commissioner said, "I find that the disclosed information was at variance with what the appellant had requested. The focus of the CPIO and the Appellate Authority ought to have been on the 'communications' of a certain variety as received by SEBI from the government of India and not material on the issues contained in the points which the appellant had listed. I wonder how such elementary aspects of the appellant's RTI query escaped the notice of both the CPIO and the Appellate Authority. Prima facie, there seems to be an attempt to somehow fob off the appellant with some vague information rather than give to her what she had really demanded. If SEBI had received no communication from the government of India of the type the appellant had mentioned in her RTI application, a proper response to that effect would have been entirely in order. Unfortunately, that was not to be."
 
The Information Commissioner directed the CPIO to provide precise information sought by Ms Kashyap pertaining to her RTI queries within two weeks. The Commission also issued notices to the CPIO as to why proceedings under Section 20 of the RTI Act should not be drawn up against him for providing false and misleading information to the appellant.
 
While the order was issued some time ago, it has been put in the public domain only recently. This is probably the first time that a regulator has been threatened with a fine for not providing proper information to a citizen under the RTI Act.

Interestingly, under the previous chairman, SEBI used to take pride in its claim that it answered all RTI queries. However, the regulator now seems to share the same attitude at the two leading bourses - the National Stock Exchange and the Bombay Stock Exchange - who have both gone to court claiming that they should not be subject to the RTI Act.

Meanwhile, SEBI had filed a writ petition against the CIC order in the Bombay High Court. The HC, while admitting the petition sent a notice to the CIC, returnable by 26th July and said, "...till then there will be ad interim order in terms of prayer clause".