Authority: Appellate Authority under the RTI Act, Securities and Exchange Board of India

Order Date: September 21, 2026

Case Overview

The appellant, Swarnali Basu, filed an application under the Right to Information Act, 2005, on June 05, 2026, which was received by SEBI through the RTI MIS portal. The Chief Public Information Officer (CPIO) of SEBI responded to the application via a letter dated July 03, 2026. Aggrieved by this response, the appellant filed a first appeal, registered as SEBIH/A/E/26/00331, which was received on August 30, 2026.

The core of the appellant's original application was a request for assistance regarding a specific UTI mutual fund scheme, 'Rajlakshmi Unit Scheme', Certificate No. R262013069681. The appellant stated that their father had purchased the scheme in 1993, which had a maturity date in 2012. Their father passed away in 2007, and many documents were lost. The appellant had contacted UTI via email but was unsatisfied with the response and sought SEBI's help to claim the benefits.

The CPIO's response stated that the queries were in the nature of seeking a clarification or opinion and could not be construed as 'information' as defined under Section 2(f) of the RTI Act. Notwithstanding this, the respondent informed the appellant about the MITRA (Mutual Fund Investment Tracing and Retrieval Assistant) Portal, which is designed to help investors trace inactive and unclaimed Mutual Fund folios. Links to the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) and Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) for unclaimed amounts were also provided.

The appellant's appeal was based on dissatisfaction with this response from the CPIO.

Final Outcome

The Appellate Authority found the appeal to be time-barred. As per Section 19(1) of the RTI Act, a first appeal must be filed within thirty days from the receipt of the CPIO's response. The impugned response was dated July 03, 2026, making the appeal due on or before the expiry of thirty days from its receipt. The appeal was received on August 30, 2026, which was beyond this statutory period. The appellant neither requested condonation of this delay nor provided any explanation for it. Consequently, the appeal was dismissed on this procedural ground.

Even on merit, the Authority concurred with the CPIO's stance, ruling that the appellant's queries were indeed requests for clarification, opinion, and assistance, not a request for recorded 'information'. Relying on a precedent from the Central Information Commission (Azad Singh vs. CPIO, Oriental Insurance Company Limited), the Authority affirmed that a CPIO is not obligated to create, interpret, or research information to provide clarifications under the RTI Act. The decision of the respondent CPIO was upheld, and the appeal was dismissed.

Topics: RTI Act, Mutual Fund Unclaimed Amounts, Regulatory Compliance