HC rejects plea to make public med reimbursements of SC judges

Delhi High Court today dismissed a plea seeking details of medical reimbursements of Supreme Court judges, saying it had personal information and providing it would amount to invasion of their privacy.
A bench of Chief Justice G Rohini and Justice Deepa Sharma said there was no larger public interest involved in seeking details of medical facilities availed by individual judges and no direction whatsoever can be issued under the Right to Information (RTI) Act.
The court passed the judgement on RTI applicant Subhash Chandra Agarwal's appeal against the order of a single judge bench of the High Court which had set aside the Central Information Commission's (CIC) direction to provide the information as being "erroneous".

"The information sought by appellant includes details of the medical facilities availed by the individual judges. The same being personal information, we are of the view that providing such information would undoubtedly amount to invasion of their privacy.
"We have also taken note of the fact that it was conceded before the single judge by the appellant that no larger public interest is involved in seeking details of medical facilities availed by individual judges.
"...We are unable to understand how the public interest requires disclosure of the details of the medical facilities availed by the individual judges. In the absence of any such larger public interest, no direction whatsoever can be issued under the RTI Act by the appellate authorities," it said.

The court also noted in its six-page judgement that "the total expenditure incurred for the medical treatment of the judges for the period in question was already furnished by the Central Public Information Officer by his letter dated August 30, 2011, and "it is not the case of the appellant that the said expenditure is excessive or exorbitant".
"The CIC order of February 1, 2012 is unsustainable and the same has rightly been set aside by the single judge," it added.