The Telegraph New Delhi: Wednesday, September 13, 2017.
The Supreme
Court today said it would lay down a law to specify whether the government was
under any obligation to make public the alleged undisclosed wealth of
lawmakers.
"What is
a fundamental right to privacy for one individual may be a fundamental right to
information under Article 19 (freedom of speech and expression) in the larger
public interest to others. Equally, if there is a conflict between the two, the
court has to reconcile the two rights and strike a balance," a bench of
Justices J. Chelameshwar and Abdul Nazeer told attorney-general K.K. Venugopal.
The court
disagreed with Venugopal's contention that such non-disclosure enjoyed immunity
under the Right To Information (RTI) Act
The court was
hearing two PILs filed by NGOs Lok Prahari and Association for Democratic
Rights seeking a direction to the Centre and the Election Commission for
compelling candidates to disclose their source of income, including subsisting
commercial contracts with the government.
Currently,
Section 9A of the RP Act bars any candidate from having any subsisting contract
with the government or its instrumentalities. It, however, does not prohibit
other family members from having commercial contracts with the government. As a
result, there are allegations of benami contracts by lawmakers in the name of
their spouses and other family members.
The bench
today made the observation when Venugopal told the court that the government
could not make public the names of the lawmakers in alleged possession of
undisclosed income.
The
government had on Monday submitted in a sealed cover a report on the income tax
department's findings that has "prima facie" found
"discrepancies" in the disclosure of assets made by 105 lawmakers of
the country.
Justice
Chelameshwar, heading the bench, wondered how the government could claim
exemption under the RTI Act.
The court
said it could understand such exemption for agencies like the IB, RAW, DRI
(directorate of revenue intelligence) or the BSF and the military.
"Information
gathered by intelligence and security organisations is different from
information collected by investigating agencies like the income tax
department," Justice Chelameshwar said.
Venugopal
agreed there was a difference between the two but said so far, nobody had
challenged the immunity granted to the IT department from disclosure under the
RTI Act.
The bench
also suggested that the Centre should come out with an "exclusive
mechanism" to deal with complaints of disproportionate assets accumulated
by lawmakers. The Centre refrained from making any commitment on the issue.
"Is it
not desirable to have an exclusive mechanism to deal with such issues?"
the bench asked.
The judgment
is likely to be delivered after a month.
Justice
Chelameshwar today also wondered how politicians, after becoming legislators
and parliamentarians, record a massive jump in their income.
"Income
under each head should be probed. The public needs an answer. The people should
get to know the state of affairs. It is not enough that a legislator discloses
a legitimate source of income. It is important to inquire how the person got
into that position to earn that income," the judge observed.
On Monday,
the income tax department had informed the court that it had "prima
facie" found "discrepancies" in the disclosure of assets made by
105 lawmakers of the country.
It, however,
did not disclose the party affiliations of the law makers.
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