SC says CJI's office public authority, RTI right & judicial independence need to be balanced

The office of the Chief Justice of India (CJI) is a public authority under the Right to Information Act, the Supreme Court held Wednesday but said "judicial independence has to be kept in mind" while disclosing information in "public interest".

In a path breaking verdict, a 5-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi dismissed the appeal filed by the Central Public Information Officer and the Secretary General of the apex court against the Delhi High Court's 2010 judgement.

Writing the judgement on behalf of the CJI, Justice Deepak Gupta and himself, Justice Sanjiv Khanna referred to several decisions and viewpoints to highlight the contentious nature of the issue of "transparency, accountability and judicial independence", and said it was necessary that "the question of judicial independence is accounted for in the balancing exercise".

Referring to Constitutional scheme on setting up of the apex court, the verdict said: "It is undebatable that the Supreme Court of India is a 'public authority', as defined vide clause (h) to Section 2 of the RTI Act as it has been established and constituted by or under the Constitution.

"The CJI is the competent authority in the case of the Supreme Court. Consequently, in terms of Section 28 of the RTI Act, the CJI is empowered to frame rules, which have to be notified..., to carry out provisions of the RTI Act."
Deciding three appeals, the judgement said it was not possible to answer these questions in absolute terms, and "in each case, the public interest test would be applied to weigh the scales and on balance determine whether information should be furnished or would be exempt."