HC to hear SC's plea on assets declaration of judges tomorrow

The Delhi High Court today agreed to give an urgent hearing to the Supreme Court's petition challenging its order which had held that the office of Chief Justice of India comes within the ambit of RTI Act and directed the apex court to reveal information on judges assets.

A Bench comprising Chief Justice A P Shah and Justice S Muralidhar accepted the plea of the apex court and listed the matter for tomorrow after advocate Atul Nanda pleaded for early hearing.

The apex court had approached the High Court alleging that the judgement of a single bench is "bad in law" and "deserves to be set aside".

Pointing out 58 "errors" in the 71-page verdict of the single judge bench, the appeal filed by the Supreme Court Registry said, "The analysis of the single judge is essentially wrong and the conclusions reached by him are unjustified in law and constitutional theory."

The High Court had in its September 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 judgement was contrary to the stand taken by Chief Justice of India K G Balakrishnan who had consistently been maintaining that his office is beyond the purview of the Right to Information Act.