New Delhi: The Central Information Commission has directed the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) to make public the list of companies which have been penalised by it and those which have been let off without any fine.

Chief Information Commissioner Satyananda Mishra also directed SEBI to make public statistical details of number of cases in which penalty has been imposed and the number of cases which have been closed without any penalty.

Kanpur-based RTI applicant Tatwesh Agarwal had sought to know details of investigations carried out by SEBI into scrips of companies during four year period of 2006-10.

SEBI refused to part with the information saying investigations were undertaken by various entities for violation of various provisions of law and the probe resulted either in imposition of penalty or closure of the case.

He said such details are not maintained centrally and are scattered across case files.

SEBI said details of an individual case can be provided if applicant give specific details of a case.

"After carefully considering the facts of the case and the submissions made before us, we are of the view that the CPIO/SEBI has not made sufficient efforts to provide any information in this case. The CPIO had merely refused to disclose the information by taking recourse to the exemption provision contained in the subsection 1(h) of section eight of the Right to Information Act," Mishra said.

He said statistical details about the number of cases taken up investigation during a particular year and number of cases in which any penalty was imposed or the case was closed should be available with the SEBI and should be disclosed.

"Apart from this, the list of entities against whom penalties have been imposed and those whose cases had been closed must be provided," Mishra said.