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Informist, Monday, Aug. 25, 2025

NEW DELHI - The Supreme Court on Monday stayed a Kerala High Court ruling that had classified Cochin International Airport as a public authority under the Right to Information Act, 2005. With this, the airport is now no longer required to disclose necessary information or meet statutory obligations placed upon it. "Leave granted. In meantime the effect and operation of the impugned order shall remain stayed," said the bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta. 

Cochin International Airport's lawyer had said the high court's judgment was untenable. Cochin International Airport was a company under Companies Act, 2013 and hasn't been created by an Act of Parliament like Life Insurance Corp. of India, said the lawyer, adding, "I am not funded by government".

The dispute originated when certain private entities sought information from Cochin International Airport under the Right to Information Act, 2005. The company's public information officer rejected the request, contending that the airport did not qualify as a 'public authority' under Section 2(h) of the 2005 Act. The matter was then taken to the Kerala State Information Commission, which in 2010 ruled that the airport was indeed a public authority and therefore obligated to disclose the information sought. After multiple rounds of litigation, the case eventually reached the high court, which upheld the commission's decision and dismissed Cochin International Airport's plea.

The petitioner argued that the state information commissioner and the high court had misdirected themselves whilst holding that Cochin International Airport was amenable to the 2005 Act. The Kerala government was at best a shareholder, albeit the largest one, receiving dividends at par with any other category of shareholders, and therefore mere shareholding would not constitute control or ownership of the affairs of the company, the petitioner said. Even if the state had invested any amount in the company, the petitioner maintained that it was purely an equity investment which could not be treated as an investment for giving a fillip to the establishment, sustenance, and maintenance of Cochin International Airport.

The respondents — the State Information Commissioner and the private applicants — said the petitioner can be treated as an authority established through an order made by the 'appropriate government', which was the government of Kerala in the present case. The predecessor entity of the petitioner, the Kochi International Airport Society, was established through a government order issued in this behalf, whose project report was forwarded by no one else but the district collector of Ernakulam, the respondents said.

Kochi International Airport Society was a registered society comprising the majority of government nominees, including the chief minister, state transport minister, the chief secretary, the district collector, and many other government nominees who actually drove the idea from dream to fruition of Cochin International Airport, said the respondents. It is this Kochi International Airport, which was later converted into Cochin International Airport as a company, with all its assets and land holdings under the ownership and control of the former transferred to it, said the respondents. 

On Aug. 5, the high court held that much before its incorporation, Kochi International Airport Society and then Cochin International Airport had been 'substantially financed' by the Kerala government and its instrumentalities and the central government. "Therefore, all the limbs of being a 'public authority' are duly satisfied and we must hold that CIAL (Cochin International Airport) is a 'public authority' amenable to disseminate information under the provisions and rigours of RTI Act," said the high court.  End

Reported by Surya Tripathi

Edited by Subhojit Sarkar

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