The Delhi High Court (HC) on Thursday said the National Stock Exchange (NSE) was a public authority and was bound to reveal information under the Right to Information (RTI) Act. Justice Sanjiv Khanna dismissed NSE’s plea that it could not be forced to disclose information under the transparency law since it was an autonomous body and not controlled by the government. The court upheld the decision of the Central Information Commission (CIC), which had declared stock exchanges a public authority. The CIC, in 2007, had held that stock exchanges were “quasi” governmental bodies that are bound to disclose information to the public under the RTI Act. “A stock exchange, being a quasi-governmental body working under the statute and exercising statutory powers, has to be held to be a public authority under the Act,” the Commission had said, while directing the NSE to put in place a mechanism for the purpose.
