Law et al. News; Garima TyagiSaturday,06 August 2011.
The Supreme Court has been directed by Central Information Commission (CIC) to make public rules relating to appointment of its retired judges as arbitrators and medical reimbursement made to individual judges during last three years. The CIC also directed the Supreme Court to disclose the list of all resolutions passed by meetings of all the judges since 25 March 1997. The CIC order came on three RTI applications of activist Subhash Agrawal.
The Apex Court had earlier denied providing any information to RTI applicant Agarwal on the ground that the desired information was personal in nature or it was not maintained in the form in which applicant had sought.
Chief Information Commissioner Satyananda Mishra in his order stated, “it is very difficult to accept the contention of the Respondents that such simple statistical information as the total expenses incurred on medical reimbursement for individual judges or the list of resolutions passed in the meetings of all the judges of the Supreme Court should not be available in the Supreme Court.”
“All offices funded by the State have to maintain accounts of all expenses made on such heads as medical reimbursement against individual claims based on approved entitlements. Similarly, it is most unlikely that there is no data in the Supreme Court about the number of resolutions passed in the meetings of all the judges,” the order read.
CIC directed the Supreme Court to ensure that arrangements are made in future for maintaining such information in digital format as mandated under section 4(1) (a) the RTI Act so its retrieval and disclosure would become easier.
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