Business
Standard: New Delhi: Wednesday, 28 January 2015.
Delhi High
Court was today moved by an RTI applicant challenging its order exempting
medical reimbursements of Supreme Court judges from disclosure under the Right
to Information (RTI) Act.
The petition,
which was listed before a bench of Chief Justice G Rohini and Justice Rajiv
Sahai Endlaw, was not taken up as the bench did not assemble.
The petition
has sought setting aside of the High Court's December 19, 2014, order of a
single judge who had held that disclosure of the medical reimbursements would
not serve any public interest and was thus exempt from the Act's purview.
The court had
also held that the information sought was of a personal nature and held the
Central Information Commission's (CIC) order as "erroneous".
The
petitioner, Subhash Chandra Agarwal, has contended that "salaries,
pensions and allowances payable to or in respect of judges of Supreme Court are
to be charged under the Consolidated Fund of India", as per the
Constitution.
"Therefore,
source of reimbursement money of the medical bills of Supreme Court judges
comes from the hard-earned money of citizens as taxpayers," the petition
filed through advocate Prashant Bhushan said.
Agarwal has
also contended that "information pertaining to expenditure of public money
on public servants cannot be exempted from disclosure under RTI".
He said that
he has not sought information regarding the illness or medical treatment of the
judges, but only the amount spent on the same.
He also
sought an order directing the apex court registry to comply with the Central
Information Commission's (CIC) February 2012 order directing them to provide
the information sought by him.
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