Madras High Court directs Tasmac to disclose quantum and price at which liquor is procured from private breweries and distilleries

In a significant order, the Madras High Court has directed the Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation (Tasmac) to disclose, under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, all details regarding the quantum of liquor procured by it from individual private breweries and distilleries, and the price at which these are being supplied.

In a significant order, the Madras High Court has directed the Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation (Tasmac) to disclose, under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, all details regarding the quantum of liquor procured by it from individual private breweries and distilleries, and the price at which these are being supplied.

Justice S.M. Subramaniam allowed a writ petition filed by Coimbatore-based advocate M. Loganathan in 2017 and held that there was absolutely no “commercial confidence” involved in refusing to disclose such information and that it must be necessarily disclosed to RTI applicants in larger public interest and to ensure transparency.

“The very purpose and object of the RTI Act, 2005 is to promote transparency and accountability in the working of every public authority. The second respondent (Tasmac) being a State-owned organisation dealing with public money, its functioning must be accountable to the public at large,” the judge wrote.

He went on to state: “Information relating to purchase of liquor, rate fixed, procedures adopted, brand name etc., must be provided to information seekers whenever an application is filed under the RTI Act. Thus, the petitioner is entitled for the information sought for with reference to question no. 2 in his application.”

The judge quashed an order passed by the Tamil Nadu State Information Commission on November 1, 2017 refusing to entertain an appeal preferred by the RTI applicant and said, the commission itself could have called for the details in a sealed cover, as it had been done by the High Court, to ascertain whether any commercial confidence was involved.

Tasmac had resisted the disclosure of information tooth and nail. When the 2017 writ petition was heard by Justice N. Sathish Kumar in December 2022, the judge had ordered that details regarding the names of the private breweries and distilleries from which Tasmac was procuring liquor to be submitted in court in a sealed cover. Subsequently, Justice Anita Sumanth imposed costs of ₹10,000 on the corporation for having failed to submit the details by December 12 and ordered that the money be paid to the Cancer Institute (Women’s Indian Association) at Adyar in Chennai. Thereafter, Tasmac took the matter on appeal to a Division Bench of the Court.

The first Bench comprising Acting Chief Justice T. Raja and Justice D. Bharatha Chakravarthy dismissed the appeal in January this year paving way for the current disposal of the writ petition pending for the last six years.