Bhuvana Marni
Published on: October 3, 2022 at 19:12 IST
The Reserve Bank of India was required by the Right to Information Act to reveal defaulters’ lists, inspection reports, annual statements, and other information linked to banks, according to the Supreme Court’s ruling in Reserve Bank of India vs. Jayantilal N. Mistry in 2015.
The Supreme Court indicated preliminary misgivings about the ruling on Friday.
The Jayantilal Mistry case did not take into account striking a balance between the right to information and the right to privacy, according to a two-judge panel made up of Justices BR Gavai and CT Ravikumar.
The court further highlighted that in a subsequent ruling made in the Puttaswamy case by a 9-judge panel in 2017, privacy was deemed a basic right under Article 21.
In light of this, the bench found the writ petitions brought by various banks contesting the RBI’s requests for information from the banks regarding inspection reports, risk assessment reports, and yearly financial inspection reports to be maintainable.
It held that the writ petitions under Article 32 can be maintained to challenge the directions regardless of the Jayantilal Mistry case.
“In view of the judgment of this Court in the case of Jayantilal N. Mistry, the RBI is entitled to issue directions to the petitioners/Banks to disclose the information even with regard to the individual customers of the Bank. In effect, it may adversely affect the individuals’ fundamental right to privacy”, the bench observed.
Accordingly, the preliminary objection raised against the maintainability of the writ petitions was dismissed. The writ petitions will be held on merits.
The several petitions submitted by the banks to recall the Jayantilal Mistry case were denied in 2021 by a panel made up of Justices L. Nageswara Rao and Vineet Saran (both justices have since retired).
The bench reasoned that these applications attempted to have the verdict reviewed under the garb of recall requests. The judge has, however, given the banks the option to pursue other legal actions.
Following that, numerous banks, including HDFC, Axis Bank, SBI, Kotak Mahindra Bank, etc., filed writ petitions under Article 32.
The petitioners who requested the RTI information were represented by attorney Prashant Bhushan, who argued that the writ petitions contesting an earlier ruling are not maintainable.
He emphasised that the RBI was required to modify its disclosure policy by the court’s orders in 2019 while the Supreme Court was contemplating whether to take the RBI to court for contempt for failing to follow the court’s orders in the Jayantilal Mistry case.
To support his argument that a Supreme Court decision cannot be overturned under Article 32, he cited the cases Naresh Shridhar Mirajkar and Others vs. the State of Maharashtra, Anr. and A.R. Antulay vs. R.S. Nayak, as well as other precedents.
Senior Advocates Rakesh Dwivedi, Mukul Rohatgi, K V Vishwanathan, Dushyant Dave, and Jaideep Gupta, standing for several banks, alluded to the Puttaswamy case which determined privacy to be a fundamental right.
Invoking the maxim “ex debito justitia”, it was argued that no party should suffer due to a mistake of the Court and that procedure should be seen as handmaidens of justice.
It was further contended that private banks do not come under the purview of the RTI Act.
The Court observed that “A perusal of the judgments of this Court cited supra would reveal that it has been held that though the concept of the finality of judgment has to be preserved, at the same time, the principle of ex debito justitia cannot be given a gobye.
If the Court finds that the earlier judgment does not lay down a correct position of law, it is always permissible for this Court to reconsider the same and if necessary, to refer it to a larger Bench”.
Title: Reserve Bank of India vs. Jayantilal N. Mistry in 2015