"Review petition styled as recall application:" Supreme Court refuses to recall 2015 verdict directing RBI to divulge info about banks under RTI

The Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to reconsider its 2015 judgment by which top court had held that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) should disclose financial information regarding private and public banks under the Right To Information (RTI) Act (Reserve Bank of India v. Jayantilal N Mistry)..A Bench of Justices L Nageswara Rao and Vineet Saran was considering applications filed by various banks seeking recall the apex court's 2015 judgment. The banks contended that the Supreme Court verdict had not considered the important aspect of violation of the right to privacy which has been held to be an intrinsic part of the right to life and personal liberty under Article 21 of the Constitution of India in Justice KS Puttaswamy judgment..The two-judge bench noted that the plea styled as “recall” application were in essence “review” petitions..“A close scrutiny of the applications for recall makes it clear that in substance, the applicants are seeking a review of the judgment in Jayantilal N.Mistry (supra). Therefore, we are of the considered opinion that these applications are not maintainable. We make it clear that we are not dealing with any of the submissions made on the correctness of the judgment of this Court in Jayantilal N Mistry," the Court said..RBI should not hide information that might embarrass banks: SC cracks whip on ‘absurd’ arguments.The Supreme Court in its 2015 judgment had refused to accept the contention of the RBI that the information sought by the banks could not be disclosed in view of its fiduciary relationship with the banks.The top court had observed that RBI is not in any fiduciary relationship with the banks and that the “RBI has a statutory duty to uphold the interest of the public at large, the depositors, country’s economy and the banking sector,”.It had further stated that “RBI has to act with transparency and not hide information that might embarrass the banks and that it is duty bound to comply with the provisions of the Act and disclose the information sought.”.The main contention of the applicants for recall of the 2015 judgment was that the judgment has far reaching consequences and the applicants who are directly and substantially affected were not made parties and heard. They relied upon the judgments of the Supreme Court in Budhia Swain & Ors. v. Gopinath Deb, Royal Paradise Hotel (P) Ltd. v. State of Haryana, Asit Kumar Kar v. State of WB and Vishnu Agarwal v. State of UP to contend that the application for recall of the judgment is maintainable when there is violation of principles of natural justice..Supreme Court issues notice in contempt petitions filed against RBI for Disclosure Policy.The Court, however, noted that “all the judgments” cited by the applicants were of “cases where petitions for recall were entertained when a person directly affected by the judgment was not heard”..“In the instant case, the dispute relates to information to be provided by the RBI under the Act. Though the information pertained to the banks, it was the decision of the RBI which was in challenge and decided by this Court. No effort was made by any of the applicants in the miscellaneous applications to get themselves impleaded when the transferred cases were being heard by this Court. The applications styled as recall are essentially applications for review,” the Court held rejecting the plea. .[Read Judgment]