Bar & Bench: National: Friday, June 01, 2018.
Aadhaar is
not mandatory for filing cases in the Delhi High Court or the district courts
in the capital.
The order
clarifying the same was passed on May 25 by Kovai Venugopal, Appellate
Authority of the Tis Hazari courts under RTI Act, in a plea by one Mohak Bhadana.
Bhadana had
sought the following information under the RTI Act:
Is furnishing
Aadhaar number mandatory for the purpose of filing before the District courts
in Delhi or the High Court?
If the answer
to the above is affirmative, has the Delhi High Court issued any directions for
the aforesaid purpose? If so, furnish a copy of the same.
In response
to the same, the Public Information Officer had forwarded the reply by the
Judicial Branch, which stated that no information is available with respect to
the queries raised by the applicant.
This led to
the appeal before the Appellate Authority.
The Appellate
Authority noted that the reply by PIO/Judicial Branch “is not a proper reply”.
Hence, it sought the response of Filing Branch officials in this regard.
Pursuant to
the same, a response was filed by the Dealing Assistant from the Filing Branch.
His response stated that the Supreme Court of India had issued guidelines for
filing case/bail/miscellaneous applications at filing counters, through a ‘Case
Information Format’. The format had some fields which were mandatory and those
fields were identified by an asterisk mark. The reply stated that column no. 4
in the aforesaid format pertained to Aadhaar, but the same was not shown as
mandatory.
Adverting to
this response, the Appellate Authority held that Aadhaar is not mandatory for
filing cases in Delhi courts.
Regarding the
second query, the Dealing Assistant stated that the said information pertained
to the Delhi High Court and no information was available with them regarding
that query. The Appellate Authority noted the same while also observing that
the PIO of the Delhi High Court has already provided a reply to the said query.
It,
therefore, disposed of the appeal in the above terms.
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