Information not at the cost of judiciary’s independence: apex court

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http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/uncategorized/information-not-at-the-cost-of-judiciarys-independence-apex-court_100273848.html

Information not at the cost of judiciary's independence: apex court
November 12th, 2009 - 7:59 pm ICT by IANS

Supreme Court Thursday contended that information which is within the
control of a public authority should be given under the Right To
Information (RTI) act but, at the same time, the consideration of
independence of judiciary should be kept in mind.
Arguing before a three judge bench of the Delhi High Court comprising
Chief Justice Ajit Prakash Shah, Justice S. Muralidhar and Justice
Vikramjit Sen, Attorney General G.E. Vahanvati said: "Public right to
know is fine but on the same hand, it should also be seen that such
rights are not infringing on the independence of the judiciary."

The court was hearing an appeal filed by the Supreme Court challenging
the Delhi High Court's single bench order that states that office of
the Chief Justice of India (CJI) comes within the ambit of RTI act.

"RTI and information are two different things and should not be mixed.
In fact, there is a twin test as one is information held by a public
authority and the other is information under the control of public
authority," Vahanvati said.

Noting judges have voluntarily declared their assets, Vahanvati said:
"The resolution of 1997 adopted by the supreme court judges is
non-constitutional and non-binding on the judges."

To a query from the bench as to whether the resolution also makes it
mandatory that the family members of judges also declare their assets
under the right of privacy, he said that the resolution was not clear
about this.

Advocate Prashant Bhushan, arguing on behalf of S.C. Aggarwal on whose
RTI query the Central Information Commission (CIC) gave its verdict
that CJI's office is under RTI, said: "There are more specific rules
regarding the evaluation of assets and should be calculated from the
time the assets have been acquired and not on the present day prices."

The arguments remained inconclusive and will continue Friday as well.

The High Court had in its Sep 2 verdict on the controversial issue
held that the CJI was a public authority and his office came within
the purview of the transparency law. The apex court in its appeal said
the declaration of the assets by the judges is a voluntarily step and
is not under the RTI act.

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