Exhaustive as the judgment of the Apex Court in Thalappalam Service Cooperative Bank Limited v. State of Kerala (2013)16 SCC 82 is, the jurisdictional limit of the Right to Information Act ("the Act") vis-a-vis a private entity has, yet again, fallen for consideration. Given the Apex Court's definitive pronouncement, the State Information Commission (‘the Commission’), the respondent, seems to have given up its claim that a co-operative society is a public authority. Instead, it now claims that an applicant can have information from a co-operative society through a public authority who can access it under any other law as has been defined under Section 2 (f) of the Act.

2. In this rash of writ petitions, the party-respondents, in one group, as applicants, have straightaway applied to the co-operative societies concerned seeking certain information; in the other group, the applicants have applied to the departmental authorities; that is, the Co-operative Department, for information on the premise that the said authorities could summon the records and provide information to them.

3. Leaving aside the minor factual discrepancies, I reckon the core issue in all the writ petitions is a pure question of law: do the co-operative societies fall within the jurisdictional limits of the Right to Information Act ('the Act') directly or indirectly--that is, at least, through the process of an official gathering information and then providing it to the applicants? So, I have decided to dispose of all the writ petitions through a common judgment. For convenience sake, I take the facts and documents in W.P.(C)No. 17553/2014 as the basis for discussion.

4. The second respondent, a person unconnected with the society, in May 2012, requested the petitioner society to provide to him details about an account maintained by the society's one of the members; he wanted the account details from 10.07.2008 to 22.11.2010, and the information included details of the amounts deposited and withdrawn by the account-holder during that period. The society's Information Officer declined to part with any information. The refusal was on two grounds: (i) that the petitioner society is not a public authority as has been defined under the Act; and (ii) that the information sought by the second respondent pertains to an account-holder with whom the society has a fiduciary relationship, an obligation not to divulge account information without his consent.

5. Aggrieved, the second respondent filed Exhibit P3 appeal before the State Information Commission, the first respondent. It seems, however, absent any appellate mechanism in the petitioner society, the second respondent filed the appeal directly before the Commission, which is otherwise the second appellate authority. After receiving Exhibit P3 appeal, the Commission, through Exhibit P4 proceedings, directed the society to provide the information sought by the second respondent. This time, it is the society's turn to be aggrieved. It has, therefore, filed this writ petition seeking a declaration that it does not come within the purview of the Act; that the Commission has no power, authority, or jurisdiction to issue exhibit P4 directive. And Exhibit P4, so be quashed.

Submissions:

Petitioners':

6. Sri P.C. Sasidharan, the learned counsel for the petitioner Society, has submitted that the Society has over seven thousand members with a paid-up share capital of about Rupees five crores. According to him, the B-Class shares owned by the Government in the Society are very negligible to bracket the society as an entity owned or financed by the Government. Laying specific emphasis on the definition of ‘public authority’ in Section 2(h) of the Act, the learned counsel would strenuously contend that the petitioner society does not even remotely answer the description. During his submissions, the learned counsel has laid specific emphasis on Section 2(h)(d)(i) of the Act.

7. After acknowledging that the society does grant