Today’s Highlight
Apex Justice
Supreme Court fights a last ditch battle to keep information with it a secret from prying eyes, as reflected in the appeal it has filed with itself, making it a complainant, prosecutor and judge rolled into one, as noted in “Should Supreme Court Risk Suspicion?”
Bob’s Banter
Women-haters
Bob has his humorous take on the leaders who oppose reservation for women in Parliament in “The Crude, Crass, Conservative Yadavs..!”
For more insightful articles by Bob, hit his website – www.bobsbanter.com
CocktailPlaza
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- John B. Monteiro
Should Supreme Court Risk Suspicion?
By John B. Monteiro
Julius Caesar divorced his wife Pompeia, but declared at the trial that he knew nothing of what was alleged against her and Clodius. When asked why, in that case, he had divorced her, he replied: “Because I would have the chastity of my wife clear even of suspicion.” –Plutarch, Greek philosopher and biographer (AD 46-110).
Nothing is so oppressive as a secret: women find it difficult to keep one long; and I know a goodly number of men who are women in this regard. – La Fontaine, French poet (1621-1695).
Three may keep a secret if two of them are dead. – Benjamin Franklin, US statesman (1706-1790).
Secrecy and suspicion seem to go together. If you have nothing to hide, why be secretive? To that extent secretiveness is self-serving. In this age of scoops and sting operations, even persons within the organisation spill the beans as has happened in the case of the self-styled godman, Paramahamsa Nityananda of Bidadi Ashram, near Bangaluru, whose alleged amorous escapades were exposed through a secretly filmed video, later broadcast by TV channels, by his erstwhile close aide, Lenin Karuppan, alias Dharmananda. It is in this context that one has to analyse the fetish of the Chief Justice of India, Justice KG Balakrishnan, to go to great lengths to keep the apex court from the ambit of Right to Information Act.
This website has tracked the subject more than once and this update concerns the Supreme Court appealing to itself. In an historic judgment, eminent jurist, Lord Denning, had said that a departmental appeal was like an appeal from Caesar to Caesar. That is what seems to be happening now in the Supreme Court case.
The Supreme Court on February 8, 2010, filed an appeal before itself challenging the judgment of Delhi High Court, on January 10, 2010, holding that the Office of the Chief Justice of India came under the ambit of the RTI Act and was liable to reveal information under it. It may be recalled that holding that the CJI is a public authority under the Act, a full Bench of the High Court had said judges of the superior courts should make public their assets as they are not less accountable than the judicial officers of lower courts who are bound by service rules to declare assets. The Bench dismissed the plea of the SC which had vehemently opposed bringing the CJI’s office within the purview of the Act on the ground that it would encroach upon its judicial independence.
The same arguments are recycled in the latest appeal (from Caesar to Caesar?). It says that the impugned judgment “has far reaching consequences for the institutional independence of the Supreme Court, the higher judiciary, the position of the Office of the Chief Justice of India and the Chief Justices of the High Courts, the position of judges individually and the judiciary as an institution under the Constitution. The High Court has not correctly appreciated the scope and ambit of the Act and the position of the CJI in the constitutional scheme.”
The appeal says: “The right to information under the RTI Act is applicable only to information which is in the public domain. The Act can be invoked only in relation to information pertaining to the public affairs of a public authority. If the matter or information is not in the public domain, there is no right under Section 2 (j) of the Act.”
The appeal raises questions of law whether the CJI “holds information pertaining to assets of individual judges in a fiduciary capacity” attracting the exceptions under the Act; whether the information on the assets is personal information of the judges exempted under the Act; whether the respondent has a right to ask information under the Act which militates against the basic constitutional feature and whether certain confidential information in the CJI’s possession could be disclosed. The appeal says that the High Court’s conclusions were erroneous as information under Section 2 (j) was not an unfettered constitutional right but was subject to restrictions under the Act itself, which contains exclusions and also exemptions under Section 8. It says that the High Court erred in concluding that the respondent had a right to information pertaining to the assets of judges under Articles 14, 19 and 21 of the Constitution.
The subject is open to many views. What are yours? Over to you.
