SC stays own order for appointment of retired judges to info panels

Times of India: New Delhi: Wednesday, April 17, 2013.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday stayed its seven-month-old controversial order directing governments to appoint retired SC and HC judges as heads of Central Information Commission and State Information Commissions.

In an interim order passed on a petition by the Union government seeking review of the apex court's September 13, 2012 judgment, a bench of Justices A K Patnaik and Arjan K Sikri also stayed the earlier directive to information commissions to work in benches of two members.

The directives had created a furore among RTI activists who saw the judgment as judiciary's encroachment into the executive's domain and imposing its choice of heads of information panels. The government in its review petition had said the court could not have directed the legislature to amend the law, the RTI Act, except where the law was silent on a particular subject.

After hearing additional solicitor general Amarjit Singh Chandiok and advocate Prashant Bhushan on the interim relief, the bench of Justices Patnaik and Sikri said, "We further direct that wherever chief information commissioner is of the opinion that intricate questions of law will have to be decided in a matter coming before the information commissioner, he will ensure that the matter is heard by a bench of which at least one member has knowledge and experience in the field of law.

"We make it clear that subject to orders that may be finally passed after hearing the review petitioners, the competent authority will continue to fill up the vacant posts of information commissioners in accordance with the Act and in accordance with the judgment except the paragraphs we have stayed."

The bench further said, "This is to ensure that functioning of the information commissions in accordance with the Act and the judgment is not affected during the pendency of the review petitions. We also make it clear that the chief commissioners already functioning will continue to function until the disposal of the review petitions."

After the Union government filed the petition seeking review of the September 13 judgment, it was joined by former information commissioner Shailesh Gandhi and social activist Aruna Roy.

The September 13 judgment had said, "The chief information commissioner at the Centre or state level shall only be a person who is or has been a chief justice of the high court or a judge of the Supreme Court of India."

The court had also directed that "appointment of judicial members to any of these posts shall be made in consultation with the Chief Justice of India and chief justices of the high courts of the respective states, as the case may be".