{"id":33297,"date":"2018-10-30T11:43:10","date_gmt":"2018-10-30T06:13:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=33297"},"modified":"2018-10-30T11:43:10","modified_gmt":"2018-10-30T06:13:10","slug":"information-at-the-courts-discretion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/information-at-the-courts-discretion\/","title":{"rendered":"Information at the court\u2019s discretion:\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

Information at the court\u2019s discretion:<\/a><\/p>\n

Context<\/strong><\/p>\n

The judiciary\u2019s brazen disregard for the RTI has now got a stamp of approval from a high court<\/p>\n

Backdrop<\/strong><\/p>\n

Resistance of the Indian Judiciary to RTI<\/p>\n

The apex court summarily rejects RTI requests, and insists that applicants exclusively request information under its administrative rules (Supreme Court Rules) framed in 1966, and re-issued with minor changes in 2014.<\/p>\n

Why the Non-engagement with the RTI?<\/strong><\/p>\n

To see why the High Court\u2019s judgment strengthens a culture of opacity in the higher judiciary, we need to delve into the Supreme Court\u2019s engagement, or rather persistent non-engagement with the RTI<\/p>\n

The background story<\/strong><\/p>\n

RTI filed with the SC registry<\/strong><\/p>\n

In April 2010, a former schoolteacher, R.S. Misra, filed an RTI request with the Supreme Court Registry. He had earlier sent two letters to different Justices, essentially demanding redress in a case before the apex court that he had already lost. In an evident attempt at using RTI to fight a judicial battle already lost, he sought \u201caction taken\u201d reports on his letters<\/p>\n

The Registry rejected the application<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Registry could have lawfully disposed of this RTI request by simply stating that no such information was available. Instead, the Registry rejected the application, and asked Mr. Misra to apply under the Supreme Court Rules<\/p>\n

This response challenged before the CIC<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mr. Misra challenged this response before the then Central Information Commissioner Shailesh Gandhi<\/p>\n

Registry clarifies its position<\/strong><\/p>\n

In May 2011, appearing before the Commission, the Additional Registrar of the Court, Smita Sharma objected only to the use of the RTI, and not to Mr. Misra\u2019s request per se.<\/p>\n

The Core Issue in the whole story<\/strong><\/p>\n

She maintained that the Supreme Court Rules alone governed access to the information he had sought. Claiming that the Rules were consistent with the RTI, she asked Mr. Gandhi to reinstate the primacy of Supreme Court Rules over the RTI, in line with previous Central Information Commission (CIC) rulings.<\/p>\n

SC Rules undermined RTI in four key ways<\/strong><\/p>\n

However, as Mr. Gandhi noted in his decision, the Supreme Court Rules undermined the RTI in four key ways<\/p>\n

Unlike the RTI Act, the Rules do not provide for:<\/p>\n