NEW DELHI: The Reserve Bank of India ( RBI ) and commercial banks cannot hide routine information, such as the names of top defaulters, the losses suffered by banks and details of action taken against erring banks, sought by the public under the Right to Information Act, the Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday . The central bank and commercial banks hitherto denied such information on the ground that it was information held in a fiduciary capacity and could not be revealed to the public at large.A bench, comprising Justices MY Eqbal and C Nagappan, rejected the RBI's plea that its relationship with banks was a fiduciary relationship based on trust, and rapped the regulatory body for failing in its duty to expose erring banks to the public.The RBI conducts regular inspections of banks and financial institutions and the reports prepared by it contain a wide range of information collected in a fiduciary capacity , the court had been told during the hearing.Financial institutions had challenged a slew of orders passed by the Central Information Commission asking banks to share details of defaulters and details of their loans.Some other CIC orders were against the RBI for not sharing details of penalties imposed on erring banks and details of cooperative banks such as the United Mercantile Cooperative Bank and action taken against their officers.In one case, the RBI had refused to answer specifics about a parliamentary answer made by the finance minister about some banks such as State Bank of India, ICICI Bank , Bank of Baroda, Dena Bank and HSBC. The minister said that these banks had been issued letters of displeasure and fined for violating foreign exchange regulations on opening accounts.ICICI Bank later refused to share details of the alleged violations under the RTI . In another case, the RBI had refused to share the list of banks against whom action had been taken for alleged violations of rules. In a third, it refused to share losses from derivatives trading. Nabard was also a party to the case. The CIC had passed some adverse orders against it regarding some cooperative banks.The RTI activists' case was fought in court by lawyer Prashant Bhushan, while the RBI was represented by senior lawyer TR Andhyarujina. The RBI assailed all the CIC orders as illegal and without jurisdiction."Circumspection in disclosures by the supervisors arises from the potential market reaction that such disclosure might trigger, which may not be desirable," the RBI argued. "Thus, in any policy of transparency , there is a need to build processes which ensure that the benefits of supervisory disclosure are appropriately weighed against the risk to stakeholders, such as depositors."It said disclosure of these scrutiny and information would create misunderstanding and misinterpretation in the minds of the public. "That apart, this may prove significantly counter-productive... disclosure of information... would not serve the public interest as it will give adverse impact in public confidence on the bank.This has serious implication for financial stability which rests on public confidence.This will also adversely affect the economic interest of the State and would not serve the larger public interest."The RBI claimed that it could exercise its rights even otherwise under the RTI to hold back confidential information in the economic interest of the country .The RBI claimed that the specific Act governing it cannot be over-ridden by a general law like the RTI."The people of this country have a right to know every public act, everything that is done in a public way, by their functionaries," Bhushan argued. The top court agreed with him to rule that the RBI's plea to make an exception of the RTI for it was "misconceived" as it stood in the way of an informed citizenry .The RBI does not place itself in a fiduciary relationship with the financial institutions, because, the reports of inspections, statements of bank and information related to business obtained by the RBI are not under pretext of confidence or trust, it said.The central bank is supposed to uphold public interest and not the interest of individual banks, the court said. The RBI has no legal duty to maximize the benefit of any public sector or private sector bank, and thus there is no relationship of "trust" between them, it said. The RBI has a statutory duty to uphold the interest of the public at large, the depositors, the country's economy and the banking sector. Thus, the RBI ought to act with transparency and not hide information that might embarrass individual banks, the court said.The idea that revealing such information with the public will harm public interest was absurd, it said. "This attitude of the RBI will only attract more suspicion and disbelief in them. RBI as a regulatory authority should work to make the banks accountable to their actions." The facts reveal that banks were trying to cover up their underhand actions; they are even more liable to be subjected to public scrutiny , the court said. "We have surmised that many financial institutions have resorted to such acts which are neither clean nor transparent. The RBI in association with them has been trying to cover up their acts from public scrutiny . It is the responsibility of the RBI to take rigid action against those Banks which have been practicing disreputable business practices."