"CR"

Thottathil B. Radhakrishnan, J.

1. Is an aided college in the State of Kerala "a public authority" as defined in Section 2 (h)(d) of the Right to Information Act, 2005, for short, the "RTI Act"? This has been answered in the affirmative as per the impugned judgment. Hence, these writ appeals.

2. Adverting to the preamble to the RTI Act, the learned Judge held that it is abundantly clear that the scope of the Act is much wider in its applicability than getting confined to Governments and their instrumentalities and that the Act is intended to harmonise the conflict between the right of the citizens to secure access to information and the necessity to preserve confidentiality of sensitive information. Noticing that even the preamble states that the Act is intended to provide the practical regime of right to information in order to promote transparency and accountability in the working of every public authority, it has been held that in terms of Sections 3 and 4, the public authorities are obliged to supply information. Considering the definition of 'public authority' in Section 2(h), it has been laid down that on the basis of the undisputed facts regarding the control