While all federal public bodies are required to proactively publish all finalised reports and the records retrieved during the process of the enquiry, some of these reports, or, some parts thereof may be exempted from disclosure on legitimate concerns. The Act, 2017 itself recognizes the need for withholding certain information, or, parts thereof on legitimate grounds and has laid down process for withholding certain information/records.
This commission holds that if the public interest warrants the disclosure of a report, though some of its part may contain information which should be exempted from disclosure on reasonable grounds, those parts can be severed and the rest should be made public as required under Section 16 (1) (i) of the Act. The reasons for withholding any information/records are subject to the approval of this commission.