JUDGMENT

Hon’ble Dr. Dhananjaya Yeshwant Chandrachud, C.J.—

A The issue

In these proceedings under Article 226 of the Constitution, there is a challenge to the constitutional validity of the provisions of Section 113 (2) of the Uttar Pradesh Cooperative Societies Act, 1965, Act which were introduced by way of an amendment by U.P. Act 13 of 2013. The state legislature has enacted a provision which stipulates that the Right to Information Act, 2005-enacted by Parliament-shall cover all cooperative societies in the state. The issue is whether the state legislature has legislative competence to enact the provision.

B Facts

2. The background in which the constitutional challenge has been addressed before the Court is that the first petitioner is a primary cooperative housing society, co-operative society registered under the provisions of the Act. The second petitioner is the Honorary Secretary of the first petitioner. The case of the petitioners is that the cooperative society carries on its business from its own resources without any financial aid or assistance from the State and the State has no contribution to its share capital.

3. The fourth respondent, Rajendra Singh Verma, is a member of the cooperative society. The cooperative society issued a demand notice to the fourth respondent for the payment of outstanding dues. The demand notice was challenged by the fourth respondent by filing an arbitration case. By an award dated 16 March 2012, the arbitration case was dismissed. The fourth respondent filed an appeal before the Cooperative Tribunal. The appeal was partly allowed and the fourth respondent was held liable to make payment of the outstanding dues of the cooperative society as quantified, together with interest. The fourth respondent has filed a writ petition before this Court challenging the appellate judgment of the Cooperative Tribunal which is pending. The fourth respondent moved applications under the Right to Information Act, 2005, RTI Act for the disclosure of information by the cooperative society or, as the case may be, by the Registrar of Cooperative Societies. Eventually, the fourth respondent filed a series of complaints before the State Information Commission in which the cooperative society filed objections by setting up a plea that the complaints were not maintainable. On 1 August 2014, the fourth respondent sought certain information from the Public Information Officer of the office of the Assistant Registrar, Cooperative Societies, Gautam Budh Nagar under the RTI Act. Purportedly in the exercise of his powers under Section 6 (3), the Assistant Registrar, by a letter dated 5 August 2014 transmitted the application of the fourth respondent to the second petitioner with a direction to provide the information which has been sought. The objections filed by the cooperative society before the State Information Commission are admittedly pending and have not been disposed of. Upon receipt of the letter dated 5 August 2015, the second petitioner addressed a letter dated 2 September 2014 to the fourth respondent stating that the first petitioner is not a public authority within the meaning of Section 2 (h) of the RTI Act and was, therefore, not under any obligation to furnish information. The fourth respondent thereupon filed another complaint case which is pending before the State Information Commission. For the purposes of these proceedings, it is not necessary to burden the record with all the details of individual complaints which have been filed by the fourth respondent which are pending, save and except to note that the petitioners have raised an objection to the maintainability of the complaints on the ground that the first petitioner is not a public authority under Section 2 (h) of the RTI Act.

C State legislation under challenge

4. The legislature of the State of Uttar Pradesh enacted the Uttar Pradesh Cooperative Societies (Amendment) Act, 2013, Introduced by U.P. Act No. 13 of 2013. The amending Act cam