The Hindu: Chennai: Monday,
April 22, 2013.
The Madras
High Court has set aside an order of the Tamil Nadu Information Commission
(TNIC) of January 2012 directing the court Registrar-General to furnish to an
RTI applicant details relating to the number of subordinate judges, employees
and complaints of bribery in the subordinate judiciary.
In its order
allowing a writ petition by the Registrar-General challenging the TNIC
direction of January 10, a Division Bench comprising Justices Elipe Dharma Rao
and M.Venugopal did not agree with the Commission’s view that the applicant had
asked “only for statistical details and not names of individuals.” The TNIC
order was not sustainable in the eye of law, the Bench said.
K.Elango, an
advocate and a former Assistant Solicitor-General of India and Special
Government Pleader in Tamil Nadu, had posed questions which included the number
of subordinate judges in Tamil Nadu and employees in the judiciary in the
State, whether the registry was having any coordination with the DVAC to trap
judicial officers or court staff based on complaints, number of complaints
received by the Registry and the Vigilance Department between 2001 and 2010
against judicial officers in the subordinate judiciary and staff and how many
complaints ended in dismissal, suspension, issue of memo and dropping of case
and conviction during the period. The applicant also wanted to know the number
of complaints against High Court staff against whom complaints of corruption
had been received and the fate of the complaints.
The
Registrar-General submitted that while passing the impugned order, the TNIC had
failed to appreciate that the information sought for infringed on the High
Court’s internal administration.
The Bench
said it was of the considered view that the information sought pertained to the
internal delicate function of the High Court and related to invasion of privacy
of respective individuals if the information so as asked for was furnished.
More so, the information asked for had no relationship to any public activity
or interest.
Also, it was
not to a fuller extent open to the public. If the information sought for was
furnished, it would open the floodgates to similar applications.
Therefore,
some self-restrictions were to be imposed in regard to furnishing the
information. Further, if the information requested was given, “it will have an
adverse impact on the regular and normal, serene functioning of the High
Court’s office on the administrative side.”
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