The Telegraph: New Delhi: Friday, August 18, 2017.
The Central
Information Commission (CIC) has directed the Madras High Court registry to
upload impugned orders of lower courts and tribunals on its website in the larger
public interest.
Chief
information commissioner R.K. Mathur said the disclosures would help the
general public, litigants and stakeholders link the orders of the high court
with impugned or challenged orders.
The CIC
passed the direction on a plea by activist R.K. Jain, who had alleged that
several orders of the high court and details of impugned orders had not been
uploaded on the website.
Jain said
that under the provisions of Section 4 of the RTI Act, details of impugned
orders have to be disclosed by each public authority, including high courts.
Section 4 of the RTI Act states the respondent is required to upload a class of
information and not post orders in a "pick and choose" manner, he
said.
A high court
official said judicial records were not required to be uploaded under suo motu
disclosures as per Section 4 of the RTI Act.
A third party
may take a certified copy of a judicial record by following the procedure laid
down in the Rules of High Court of Madras, Appellate Side, 1965, and not under
the RTI Act, he said.
Mathur said
the appellant was not seeking a certified copy of the impugned orders of the
lower courts and that he wanted only details of such orders which he stated
should also have been available on the website of Madras High Court in the
larger public interest.
Mathur
directed the registry to furnish to Jain, if available, the impugned order
details of the cases mentioned in the RTI requests free of cost within 30 days.
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