Business
Standard: New Delhi: Friday, 10 April 2015.
Delhi High
Court today reserved verdict on a plea moved by an RTI applicant challenging
the single-judge order exempting medical reimbursements of Supreme Court judges
from disclosure under the Right to Information Act.
"Heard
both the party. Order reserved," said a bench of Chief Justice G Rohini and
Justice Deepa Sharma, as it expressed the view that disclosure of medical
reimbursement data would not serve any public interest.
The petition
has sought setting aside of the High Court's December 19 last year's order of a
single judge who had held that disclosure of the medical reimbursements would
not serve public interest and was thus exempt from the Act's purview.
The judge had
held that the information sought was of a personal nature and the Central
Information Commission's (CIC) order was "erroneous".
The
petitioner, Subhash Chandra Agarwal, contended that "salaries, pensions
and allowances payable to or in respect of judges of Supreme Court are to be
charged under 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," advocate
Prashant Bhushan appearing for Agarwal, said.
Senior
advocate Siddharth Luthra, appearing for Supreme Court registry, opposed
Bhushan's contention, saying the information sought is not in the public
interest.
Bhushan had
contended that "information pertaining to expenditure of public money on
public servants cannot be exempted from disclosure under RTI".
He said he
had 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 CIC's
February 2012 order directing them to provide the information.
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