New Delhi, Apr 26 (KNN) The Supreme Court has directed the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to disclose willful defaulters list and annual inspection reports under RTI.

A bench of Justices L Nageswara Rao and MR Shah asked the central bank to withdraw its non-disclosure policy, which was in violation of top court’s judgement.

In this matter, the top court and the Central Information Commission had earlier held that the RBI cannot refuse to put the inspection reports in the public domain under the transparency law.

The petitioners had moved the top court for contempt action against the RBI for not complying with the apex court's direction to disclose information under the RTI Act.

In December 2015, the petitioner under the RTI Act had sought certain information, which included copies of inspection reports of ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, HDFC Bank and State Bank of India from April 2011 to December 2015.

However, the central bank denied disclosure of such information saying that information was exempted under Section 8(1) (e) of the RTI Act and Section 45NB of the Reserve Bank of India Act.

The top court then said the central bank cannot deny information to an information seeker under the transparency law unless the material is exempted from disclosure under the law.

The RBI had defended its position by stating that it cannot disclose information as the annual inspection report of the bank contained "fiduciary" information.