OSAKA--The high court here sided with a maverick local politician and said the central government acted illegally in refusing to disclose a key piece of information regarding the sale of state-owned land to an educational institution at a mind-boggling discount.

Makoto Kimura, a Toyonaka city assembly member, was appealing an earlier Osaka District Court ruling on grounds it did not permit disclosure of a special provision of a contract regarding possible waste buried on the site that was sold to Moritomo Gakuen so it could build a private elementary school.

While the site was initially assessed as having a value of 956 million yen ($8.7 million), Moritomo Gakuen was given a discount of about 800 million yen. Officials of the Finance Ministry's Kinki Local Finance Bureau said the steep discount was warranted because of the huge expense that would be required to remove buried waste from the site.

However, Kimura contended during the district court case that there was not nearly enough waste material at the site to warrant such a hefty discount.

He asserted that failure to disclose the special provision was simply a ploy to conceal the inappropriate discount given to Moritomo Gakuen.

Kimura noted that Moritomo Gakuen had once named Akie Abe, the wife of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, as honorary principal of the planned elementary school.

Critics contend the massive discount was simply an act of favoritism to an individual with close ties to Abe or his wife.

Kimura had sought disclosure of both the sales price and the special provision regarding the sale when he filed his first lawsuit with the Osaka District Court. He was also seeking 110,000 yen in compensation for mental anguish caused by the non-disclosure.

The district court said the sales price had to be disclosed but ruled not disclosing the special provision was within legal bounds.

However, in its Dec. 17 ruling the Osaka High Court said not disclosing the special provision was also illegal and said Kimura should be compensated the full amount he had sought. The Osaka District Court had ordered compensation of 33,000 yen be paid on grounds only non-disclosure of the sales price was illegal.

According to the high court ruling, Kimura submitted an information disclosure request in September 2016 seeking release of the contract that was signed for the sale of the land in Toyonaka to Moritomo Gakuen.

The Kinki Local Finance Bureau did not disclose the sales price or special provision of the contract on grounds disclosure could damage the rights, competitive standing and valid benefits of Moritomo Gakuen.

In its ruling, the high court agreed with the district court that non-disclosure of the sales price was illegal because the Moritomo sale was the only one of 104 cases of state assets being sold between 2013 and 2016 in which the price was not divulged.

But the high court went a step further concerning the special provision in the contract and pointed to the low sales price in comparison to the value of neighboring real estate.

"Because there are doubts over the sale of state-owned assets at less than the appropriate price, (the special provision) is an equally important piece of information along with the sales price in order to determine if the price was calculated in an objective manner," the court said.

The court speculated that the special provision might explain the reasons for such a large discount and as such there was great necessity in disclosing it.

Finance Ministry officials said they would confer with other government agencies before determining whether to appeal the high court ruling.

For his part, Kimura was delighted with the ruling, saying at a news conference after the court session, "it ruled that it was illegal for the central government to hide information."

Kimura also pledged to continue to dig into the truth behind the sale of the land and voiced concern that the public was already forgetting the scandal.

"Nothing has been resolved in the Moritomo scandal and no politician has taken responsibility," Kimura said. "As a local politician from the area, I will persistently seek the truth in this case."

Yukiko Miki, head of nonprofit organization Access-Info Clearing House, said doubts had increased about whether the central government was hiding something because it at first was reluctant to disclose any information related to the Moritomo Gakuen land sale.

"Not disclosing information could lead to the burying of information that should normally be shared by society as a whole," Miki said. "Any decision to not disclose information should only be made by providing the specific reasons for that decision."