CJI had sought exemptions for judiciary from RTI

Seeking exemption from disclosure of information related to appointment or removal of judges, corresp-ondence between PM, President, CJ of India and other sensitive issues, CJI K G Balakrishnan in his letter to PM Manmohan Singh had urged that the Right to Information Act should be amended to ensure independent functioning of the judiciary. The letter was written by the CJI in September 2009.The letter has been made public by the Prime Ministers Office (PMO) in response to a plea by RTI activist S C Agrawal. The communique, which had drawn controversy with activists blaming the judiciary for shirking responsibility, refers to the failure of exempting the office of the CJI under the Act as an omission by lawmakers. The CJI, in his communication said,It is observed that while specifying the exemptions in section 8 of the Act, highly sensitive nature of the working of the office of the CJI has not been taken note of. Quite frequently, information of highly confidential and sensitive nature of matters handled by the Chief Justice of India is being sought to be disclosed under the provisions of the Act by applicant-citizens but such information has to be refused as disclosure in those cases would prejudi-cially affect the independence of the judiciary. Giving examples of various communication including appointment of judges of higher courts,written opinions/views as to suitability of prospective candidates obtained from informed /conversant judges and/or other constitutional authorities,forming part of the record of office of the CJI, Balakrishnan said these could not be made public. He added, Judgments/ orders prepared and circulated to the other members of the Bench cannot be disclosed to the public until they are officially pronounced in the open court as per the relevant rules. Complaints making serious allegations against sitting judges of higher courts received by the CJI; consequently proceedings of the inquiries conducted in terms of the in-house procedure adopted by the full court of the Supreme Court in 1997 and the Chief Justices conference held in 1999; notings/minutes recorded during arguments in the courts;privileged documents like correspondence between CJI and President or the PM and other constitutional dignitaries,are only a few instances which if allowed to be disclosed, would pose a threat to the independence of judiciary; there could be many other types of information falling in such category of exempted information, but not exhaustively,in section 8 of the RTI Act. The CJI felt that the framers of the RTI Act could not visualise,while drafting the RTI bill, these far-reaching implications for the judiciary, and that has led to this possibly inadvertent omission on the part of legislature to find a place for another clause in section 8 so as to make a provision for exemption of these type of information from being disclosed under RTI Act. Referring to the Delhi HC judgment that ruled that the CJI came under the purview of the Act, the CJI said, several confidential and sensitive matters which are exclusively in the custody of the CJI may have to be disclosed to the applicant-citizens. Undoubtedly, this would prejudicially affect the working and functioning of the Supreme Court as this would make serious inroad in to the independence of the judiciary, Balakrishnan said.
-----------------------------------------------------
(source-toi)