The Supreme Court on Monday, October 26, held that a member of a cooperative society cannot be denied information about the society's affairs under the Right to Information Act, 2005 merely because the society is not a 'public authority', where a public authority such as the Registrar can access those records under another law, LiveLaw reported.

Source: LiveLaw

"A Member of the Society cannot be denied such information on the ground that it is personal to the Society or that it does not involve any public activity or interest," a bench of Justice J.B. Pardiwala and Justice K. Vinod Chandran observed, in The Muppathadam Service Co-operative Bank Ltd. v. The State Chief Information Commissioner & Ors., Civil Appeal Nos. 13906 and 13907 of 2026.

Source: LawTrend

The member had sought two documents — a construction agreement and general body meeting minutes — under the RTI Act from the Joint Registrar (General) of Cooperative Societies. His request was initially rejected, but the State Information Commissioner and the Kerala High Court upheld his right to access the records, and the bank then appealed to the Supreme Court.

Dismissing the appeals, the Court held that Section 2(f) of the RTI Act covers information relating to private bodies that a public authority can access under another law, and that the Registrar need not already possess the documents or first decide to initiate an inquiry before accessing them. It directed the Joint Registrar to call for the two documents immediately, and in any event within two weeks, and supply them to the member.

The judgment, authored by Justice Chandran, relied on the Thalappalam and Subhash Chandra Agarwal line of cases on the Registrar's supervisory powers and the scope of information held by or accessible to a public authority, according to LiveLaw and LawTrend. Disclosure remains subject to the authority's legal powers and the RTI Act's exemptions.