India, Aug. 20 -- Public authorities cannot be directed to collect information from private parties and hand it over to people seeking it under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, the Bombay high court ruled on Tuesday. The court quashed orders of the Central Information Commission (CIC) directing market regulator SEBI to obtain information from the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) and provide it to RTI applicants.

A division bench of Justices Manish Pitale and Shreeram Shirsath was hearing petitions filed by SEBI and BSE challenging a series of CIC orders issued in May 2009.

The CIC had directed SEBI to obtain specific information from BSE and provide it to applicants. It had held that SEBI's obligations under the RTI Act extended beyond in...