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CJI OFFICE OFFICE IN THE BOUNDS OF RTI ACT
CJI OFFICE OFFICE IN THE BOUNDS OF RTI ACT
In the recent judgement of Supreme Court of India vs Subhash Chandra Agarwal[1], the Supreme Court declared that the CJI Office comes under RTI. It means that any information under the control of the CJI office is accessible to general public through the RTI Act[2].
The judgment referred to a case focused on information requests submitted by RTI activist Subhash Agarwal, all of which ultimately reached the Supreme Court. In 2009 Agarwal had asked if all of the judges of the Supreme Court had reported their assets and liabilities to the CJI following the 1997 resolution. The Supreme Court's Chief Public Information Officer said the CJI office was not a government agency under the RTI Act.
The matter came up to the Chief Information Commissioner, where CIC's full Bench guided information disclosure. The Supreme Court represented by the Secretary General appealed against the CIC order to the Delhi High Court, but faced the same order of disclosure of information. In September 2009, the Delhi High Court ruled that "the office of the Chief Justice of India is a public authority under the RTI Act and is subject to its provisions."
The General Secretary then addressed a wider (three-judge) HC bench consisting of the then Chief Justice and two other HC judges. The larger bench passed its judgment on January 2010, stating that the previous single bench judgment was "both appropriate and true, and needed no intervention.' It was also stated that ‘’Judicial independence was not a judge’s privilege, but a responsibility cast upon him.’’
Supreme court in Supreme court!
In 2010, the Supreme Court Secretary General petitioned the Delhi High Court order in the Supreme Court itself, challenging it. The matter has been brought before a Division Bench, which has decided that a Constitution Bench should adjudicate it. Yet the constitution bench was still pending for 9 years (10 CJIs ended their tenure in this interval). In 2018, CJI Ranjan Gogoi constituted the Bench, following which the bench reserved its judgment and in Nov 2019, finally pronounced its judgment.
The bone of contention of the case was within the Section 2(J) of the RTI Act, 2005[3], that defined right to information, to be an information accessible under this Act, which is held by or under the control of any ‘public authority’. The definition of ‘public authority’ is defined under the act. The act also mentioned the various ways in which, any such information can be accessed.
The constitutional bench declared the SC to be a "public authority" and the CJI office is a part of the organization. Therefore, if the Supreme Court is a public authority, then so is the CJI office. The judiciary cannot act in full isolation, as judges enjoy a constitutional position and public duty to discharge.
But the devil lies in the details. To some extent, the conditions stated in the judgment limit access to information. The granted access isn't absolute. A citizen's right to learn should be matched with the individual judges' right to privacy. Right to privacy is an important aspect and must be balanced with transparency whilst deciding to provide information from CJI's office. The right cannot be used as a surveillance tool and that judicial independence must be taken into account when dealing with transparency.
[1] Supreme Court of India vs Subhash Chandra Agarwal, 2019 SCC OnLine SC 1459.
[2] Right to Information, 2005, available at https://rti.gov.in/rti-act.pdf.
[3] Section 2(J), Right to Information, 2005.
- Right to Information
- Chief Justice of India
- Access to Information
