Notes taken by judges’ steno not public record under RTI: HC

The Hindu‎‎: New Delhi: Wednesday, October 05, 2016.

Shorthand note book in which a court stenographer takes dictation from the judge is not a “record” held by a public authority and therefore cannot be sought under the Right to Information Act, the Delhi High Court has held.

A bench of Justice Sanjeev Sachdeva said that the shorthand notebooks are not retained and they cannot be treated as part of judicial record but only memos, at best.

The bench said this while upholding the March 2016 order of Central Information Commission (CIC) by which the petitioner was denied copies of shorthand notes taken in the HC on May 27, 2013.

The petitioner was denied information by the Public Information Officer of the High Court, who said that the shorthand notes are not retained. The first appellate authority also held that “since no such record is being maintained the information is not available and thus the same cannot be furnished”.

The petitioner in the instant case had sought shorthand notes of the stenographer taken on May 27, 2013 as he said that on the said date there was a strike and no party appeared before the court but a bench went on to pass an order of ex-parte injunction against them in a suit initiated by a American multinational technology company.

Take note

Relying on a full bench judgement of the HC, which held that even draft judgments signed and exchanged are not to be considered as final judgment but only a tentative view liable to be changed, Justice Sachdeva said, “The full bench held, that the apprehension of the learned Attorney General, that notes or jottings by the Judges or their draft judgments would fall within the purview of Right to Information Act, is misplaced. Notes taken by Judges while hearing a case, it was held, cannot be treated as final views expressed by them on the case and are meant only for the use of the Judges and cannot be held to be a part of a record ‘held’ by the public authority.”

“Shorthand notebook can at best be treated as a memo of what is dictated to a steno to be later transcribed into a draft judgment or an order. When draft judgments and order do not form part of a ‘record’ held by a public authority, a shorthand note book which is memo of what is dictated and which would later be typed to become a draft judgment or an order can certainly not be held to be ‘record’ held by a public authority,” he observed.