Delhi HC goes against SC: must reveal information on pending verdicts.

Indian Express: New Delhi: Friday, 05 December 2014.

The Delhi High Court Thursday ruled that it was in the public interest to know how many and for how long cases in the Supreme Court awaited judgments after conclusion of arguments.

Dismissing an appeal by the Supreme Court against parting with such information, Justice Vibhu Bakhru held: “Indisputably, the period for which a case remains pending after the arguments, is relevant for any citizen who desires to know about the pendency of cases before the SC.”

The SC had moved an appeal against a 2011 verdict by the Central Information Commission, asking its registry to give information to RTI activist Commodore Lokesh Batra about pending cases which had been heard and in which orders had been reserved by the SC.

The CIC further directed that if the information was not available, the SC registry should make necessary arrangements for compiling such information and disclose it in the public domain in future.

The SC registry told the HC that this CIC order violated Article 145 of the Constitution, under which the SC was empowered to make its own rules on procedure. It said although such data was maintained, it was not being collated in any particular format and it should not be made public.

Justice Bakhru disagreed. He said information on pendency was “vital information regarding functioning of the courts”. The HC recalled the SC’s 2011 judgment pointing out that the confidence of the litigants in the results of the litigation is shaken if there is unreasonable delay in rendering a judgment after reserving it.

The HC said although the CIC could not have ordered to put all the statistics in the public domain in a prescribed format, there was nothing wrong “in so far as it directs that the records may be maintained in a manner so that the information regarding the period for which the judgments are pending after being reserved, is available with the petitioner in future.”

The HC said the SC registry’s view that it had no obligation to provide the information if it is not maintained in a particular form “cannot be accepted”. It also dismissed the argument that the CIC order violated the SC’s powers.

The HC order comes when the SC is yet to rule in several cases where proceedings are over. For example, it took 21 months after it reserved judgment for the SC to reject the Delhi HC’s verdict on decriminalising homosexuality.