Authority: Appellate Authority under the RTI Act, Securities and Exchange Board of India
Order Date: September 17, 2026
Case Overview
The appeal was filed by Keshav Goyal (Appellant) against the Central Public Information Officer (CPIO), SEBI, Mumbai (Respondent) under the Right to Information Act, 2005. The appeal, registered as Appeal No. 7059 of 2026, was against the response provided to Query No. 6 in an RTI application dated August 12, 2026. The specific information sought in Query No. 6 was a copy of the SEBI Grade A 2025 Phase II question paper for the General Stream, including Paper 1 and Paper 2. The respondent, in a letter dated August 17, 2026, had informed the appellant that the online examination is conducted by the Institute of Banking Personnel Selection (IBPS) as per a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). Under this MoU, only IBPS is in possession of the question paper copies, which are not shared with SEBI, and therefore, the information is not available with SEBI. The appellant filed the appeal on August 24, 2026 (Reg. No. SEBIH/A/E/26/00324) on the ground that he was provided incomplete, misleading, or false information.
Final Outcome
The Appellate Authority, Ruchi Chojer, dismissed the appeal. The authority concurred with the respondent's position, noting that a public authority can only provide information that is available in its records. It relied on a precedent set by the Central Information Commission (CIC) in the matter of Lakshminarayanan R vs. SEBI (order dated February 09, 2023). The authority also noted that the appellant had sought a copy of his evaluated answer sheet in the appeal, which expanded the scope of the original query. Citing the CIC's decision in Harish Prasad Divedi vs. Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (January 28, 2014), the authority ruled that an information seeker cannot expand the scope of an RTI enquiry at the appeal stage. The decision of the CPIO was upheld, and the appeal was dismissed.
Topics: RTI Act, SEBI Recruitment