Seeking copies of tender bid documents through RTI
29 Jun, 2013Background
The appellant filed an application under the Right to Information (RTI) Act with the Heavy Water Plant seeking copies of the bid documents in respect of a certain tender invited by the public authority, furnished by a particular bidder. The Public Information Officer (PIO) refused to disclose the information under section 8(1)(d) Notwithstanding anything contained in this Act, there shall be no obligation to give any citizen, information including commercial confidence, trade secrets or intellectual property, the disclosure of which would harm the competitive position of a third party, unless the competent authority is satisfied that larger public interest warrants the disclosure of such information; of the RTI Act.
View of CIC
The Central Information Commission (CIC) observed that after the bid process is over, the desired documents could be disclosed subject to the usual exemption provisions contained in the RTI Act. The CIC noted that in any bid document, there could be some records which happen to be the intellectual property of the bidder and cannot be disclosed; rest all the documents furnished in a tender process can be disclosed. The CIC directed the PIO to revisit the bid documents of this particular bidder and disclose the copies thereof to the appellant excluding those documents which were in the nature of the intellectual property of the bidder.
Citation: Mr. Syed Khasim Hussain v. Heavy Water Plant in File No.CIC/SM/A/2013/000040
RTI Citation : RTIFI/2013/CIC/1404
Click here to view original RTI order of Court / Information Commission