P.B. Suresh Kumar, J.

1. Admit. Government Pleader takes notice for respondents 1 and 2. Notice to respondents 3 and 4 is dispensed with, for, it is unnecessary to issue notice to the said respondents for resolving the issue raised by the petitioner in the writ petition. As agreed to by the counsel on either side, the writ petition is disposed of by this judgment at the admission stage itself.

2. The petitioner is a co-operative society registered under the Kerala Co-operative Societies Act ('the Societies Act'). The third respondent was a former collection agent of the petitioner. It is alleged by the petitioner that the fourth respondent is a friend of the third respondent. Exts.P3(a), P4(a) and P6(a) are applications preferred jointly and severally by respondents 3 and 4 before the first respondent under the Right to Information Act ('the RTI Act'). Ext.P5(a) is another application preferred by the third respondent before the second respondent under the RTI Act. Respondents 1 and 2 are authorities under the Societies Act having jurisdiction over the petitioner. The information sought in all the said applications are information relating to the petitioner and their customers. According to the petitioner, societies registered under the Societies Act are not public authorities under the RTI Act and therefore only information which respondents 1 and 2 are empowered under the Societies Act to require and maintain in respect of the petitioner can be furnished on applications for information preferred before them under the RTI Act. It is also their case that if those information are information which are being treated by the petitioner as confidential, the same can be furnished under the RTI Act only after complying with the procedure prescribed under section 11 of the RTI Act. It is the specific case of the petitioner that the information sought by respondents 3 and 4 are not information which respondents 1 and 2 are empowered under the Societies Act to require and maintain in respect of the petitioner. Nevertheless, it is alleged that respondents 1 and 2 have directed the petitioner by Exts.P3 to P6 communications to furnish the information sought by respondents 3 and 4 so as to furnish the same in turn to respondents 3 and 4. The petitioner, therefore, challenges Exts.P3 to P6 communications in this writ petition.

3. Heard the learned counsel for the petitioner as also the learned Government Pleader.

4. In the light of the decision of the Apex Court in Thalappalam Service Co-operative Bank Limited v. State of Kerala [2013(4) KLT 232], there cannot be any doubt that the petitioner would not fall within the definition of 'public authority' under the RTI Act. Co-operative societies registered under the Societies Act are, therefore, only private bodies as far as the RTI Act is concerned. But, respondents 1 and 2 would certainly fall within the definition of 'public authority' under the RTI Act and they are, therefore, obliged to furnish information under the RTI Act. The information which respondents 1 and 2 are obliged to furnish under the RTI Act are only information which would fall within the definition of "information" as contained in Section 2(f) of the RTI Act. Section 2(f) of the RTI Act reads thus:

"information" means any material in any form, including records, documents, memos, e-mails, opinions, advices, press releases, circulars, orders, logbooks, contracts, reports, papers, samples, models, data material held in any electronic form and information relating to any private body which can be accessed by a public authority under any other law for the time being in force;

It is clear from the extracted definition of "information" that as far as private bodies are concerned, information would only mean information that can be accessed by public authorities under any law. In other words, only those information can be furnished by the public authorities in relation to private bodies under the RTI Act. In CBSE v. Aditya Ba