RTI and Registered Societies: D.A.V. College Trust and the Public Authority Test

Transparency law reaches a society not by its form but by its funding. The Right to Information Act, 2005 binds a 'public authority', and its definition stretches beyond Government departments to bodies that are owned, controlled or substantially financed by Government. In D.A.V. College Trust the Supreme Court settled that a registered society or trust so financed is a public authority, and that financing can be indirect as well as direct.

1. The statutory test

• A public authority under section 2(h) includes any authority, body or institution of self-government established or constituted by or under the Constitution, a law of Parliament or a State legislature, or by a Government notification or order, and includes a body owned, controlled or substantially financed, and a non-Government organisation substantially financed, directly or indirectly by Government funds.
• Four limbs, read disjunctively: establishment by or under law or order, ownership, control, or substantial financing; satisfying any one makes the body a public authority.
• For societies the live limb is almost always substantial financing, since few are Government-established and many are grant-aided.
• The classification carries the whole RTI machinery: a Public Information Officer, proactive disclosure under section 4, replies within the statutory period, and appeals ending before the Information Commission.

Figure 1: Is the society a public authority?

2. The leading case

3. What follows from the classification

Figure 2: When financing is substantial

• A Public Information Officer and a first appellate authority are designated, and the society answers applications within the statutory timelines.
• Section 4 proactive disclosure obliges the society to publish its structure, functions, rules, decisions and finances, reducing the need for applications.
• The reach is the body, not just the aided unit: where the society itself is substantially financed, its records are open, subject to the Act's exemptions.
• Exemptions and third party rules still apply: personal information, commercial confidence and the other section 8 grounds protect what the Act protects for any public authority.
• Overlap with other regimes: a society may be a public authority under RTI while failing the stricter Article 12 test, since RTI's financing threshold is lower than the deep and pervasive control Article 12 demands.

Figure 3: The duties that attach

4. Quick Revision

1. Ask the financing question before anything else.
2. Count indirect aid, land and buildings included.
3. Measure dependence, not the percentage alone.
4. Expect the whole RTI machinery on a yes.
5. Keep RTI and Article 12 thresholds distinct.

5. Frequently Asked Questions

Does taking any Government grant make a society answerable under RTI?

No, and the qualifier is the whole point. The Act requires substantial financing, and D.A.V. College Trust reads that as dependence: the society is a public authority where it could not carry on its activities as it does without the Government funds. A marginal, occasional or one-off grant that the society could lose without changing how it operates does not cross the line. The assessment is factual, weighing the aid against the society's overall finances over time, and including indirect support such as free or concessional premises, which the Court held can itself be substantial. Societies near the line are wise to assume the obligation rather than litigate it, since the cost of compliance is low and the cost of a wrong guess is a Commission's adverse order.

If only part of a society's work is aided, is the whole society open?

The classification attaches to the body, so where the society is substantially financed its records are in principle open, not merely the records of the aided project, subject always to the Act's exemptions. Where the funding is genuinely confined to a distinct, separately financed institution that the society runs, the analysis focuses on whether that institution, or the society through it, meets the test, and disclosure follows the body that does. In practice the Information Commissions look to substance: an aided college cannot shield its management society's relevant records behind a formal separation, while a society whose aided arm is truly ring-fenced is not opened wholesale by that arm's funding. The exemptions then do the fine filtering of what must actually be disclosed.

How does RTI exposure sit alongside the Article 12 and writ questions?

As three concentric tests of decreasing stringency. Article 12 is the narrowest: deep and pervasive Government domination, making the society the State and binding it to every fundamental right. Article 226's public duty test is wider, reaching public functions of bodies that are not State. RTI's substantial-financing test is wider still, catching bodies that merely depend on Government money whatever their functions. A society can therefore be a public authority for information while escaping Article 12 altogether, and the sensible order in a problem is to run the strict test first and widen outward, pairing each test with its consequence: fundamental rights, mandamus for public duties, and disclosure obligations respectively.

6. Related Topics and Provisions

• Societies as State under Article 12
• Writ jurisdiction over societies
• Tax treatment of registered societies
• Foreign contribution and registered societies
• Accounts and audit of societies
• State societies laws: an overview