New Delhi: Both the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the Union government have been maintaining a cover of secrecy over the RBI’s letter to the government on the former’s failure to meet its inflation mandate for three straight quarters.According to LiveMint, the two have cited different reasons for not making the letter public – the RBI claims that revealing this information might affect India’s sovereignty (a broad exemption under the RTI Act), and the Union government is saying that there is no provision for making letters of this sort public under the RBI Act.The average inflation was above the upper tolerance level of the inflation target, that is 6%, for three consecutive quarters during January-September 2022. The RBI Act of 1934 was amended in 2016, and states that the RBI must explain its failure to the government as well as laying out how and by when it will be able to meet these targets.The government had first announced that it would not make the letter public in November. “RBI has furnished a report to the central government, as mandated under Section 45ZN of the RBI Act, 1934 and Regulation 7 of RBI Monetary Policy Committee and Monetary Policy process Regulations, 2016. The said provisions of the RBI Act, 1934, and Regulations therein does not provide for making the report public,” minister of state for finance Pankaj Chaudhary said then in a written reply to the Lok Sabha.The RBI, meanwhile, announced that it would not share the letter with the public on December 13, stating that the information was exempt under Section 8(1)(a) of the RTI Act. This specific section exempts the government and public offices from sharing information which could affect the sovereignty and integrity of India, security, strategic, scientific or economic interests of the state, relations with a foreign state, or lead to incitement of an offence. Even before that official response, RBI governor Shaktikanta Das called the letter “privileged communication between RBI and the government”.Legal experts told LiveMint that the RBI may require the government’s permission to make the letter public. “Given that the amended RBI Act is silent on disclosure of the contents of the letter, it would be fair to assume that the intention was never to disclose,” Prashanth Shivadass, a partner at law firm Shivadass and Shivadass, told the newspaper.