THE CBDT has communicated to the field formations that the use and disclosure of the information received under the tax treaties is governed by the confidentiality provisions of the respective tax treaties and therefore, disclosure of information received under tax treaties is covered under section 8(1)(a) and 8(1)(f) of the Right to Information Act, 2005.

The Board letter further sates that RTI applications, where information is sought in respect of a request for information made to any foreign jurisdiction under tax treaties, are being transferred to the FT&TR division in a routine manner by CPIOs and First Appellate Authorities functioning in the field. It is to state that this division only facilitates the exchange of information and once the information in a particular case is received from any foreign jurisdiction, the same is forwarded to the concerned field authorities in original. Thereafter, the field authorities who had requested for such information become the custodian of that information. Any RTI application concerned with such information should, therefore, be dealt with by the concerned field authorities who hold such information.