APPLYING THE LAW

What If A Third Party Is Involved: Applications

You will not need to consult where you are anyway intending not to disclose the information because you think an exemption applies. In such cases, third parties interests are already suitably protected.

However, under section 11(1) of the Central Act, where a PIO intends to disclose information "which relates to or has been supplied by a third party AND has been treated as confidential by that third party, the PIO must, within 5 days of receiving the request, contact the third party and invite them to make a written or oral submission regarding whether the information should be disclosed. The third party has 10 days within which to make their submission.

What is important about this provision is that you only need to consult a third party where the information being considered for disclosure was originally given in confidence by that third party. However, if when the information was given to your organisation it was understood that it could be made public, then there is no obligation to consult the third party. For example, details of BPL cardholders can be made public because the cardholders never supplied their details in confidence. However, details of a company's trade secrets supplied as part of a tender cannot be released without first contacting the third party because at the time the information was supplied the company would have provided it on a confidential basis only.

Contacting a third party can be important to ensure that you have all the relevant information that you need to make your decision. For example, a third party might tell you that certain information you hold is sensitive economic information or they can explain exactly why they think that disclosure would harm their competitive commercial interests. Consulting with a third party can help you to work out if an exemption applies or where the public interest lies.

Please click on the link to the Central RTI Act to read the detailed provisions contained in the law. Please click on the link to CHRI's State RTI pages to find out more about relevant rules and implementation in your specific State.