The Delhi High Court on Monday dismissed an appeal by the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation against a Single Bench order upholding a Central Information Commission directive to provide information to a Right to Information query about the design of a pillar on the Central Secretariat-Badarapur line. The pillar had collapsed in July 2009 killing six persons and injuring 15.
The DMRC had attributed the accident to a “problem in the design” of the pillar.
Dismissing the appeal and directing the DMRC to make public the information sought, a Division Bench of the Court comprising Justice Dipak Misra and Justice Sanjiv Khanna said there was no merit in opposing the information being made public.
The Commission had in March last year directed the DMRC to make public information about the structural drawings related to the pillar.
Sudhir Vohra, an architect, had sought details of the pile foundation, superstructure, steel reinforcement, foundation, engineering calculations and soil tests for the cantilevered bracket of the pillar.
The DMRC had refused to share any details saying that it held the intellectual property right of the design and other details of the pillar, and that its disclosure would affect the commercial interests of the company which had made it. It had also said disclosure of the design specifications to the public would directly affect the safety and security of the metro rail system.
Rejecting the DMRC's arguments for not sharing the information, the Commission had said the disclosure was necessary in “larger public interest”.
