- The Supreme Court has commenced hearing on its own appeal whether the Chief Justice of India’s office is covered under the purview of the Right to Information Act (RTI).
- The issue has arisen from an appeal filed by the Supreme Court against the January 2010 judgement of the Delhi High Court that declared the CJI’s office a public authority within the meaning of Section 2(h) of the RTI Act, 2005.
- The Attorney General explained to the Supreme court that there are three issues in the case (a)one is relating to disclosure of correspondence between Collegium and Centre (b)Second is relating to disclosure of assets of judges and (c)third is about to disclosure of letters exchanged in the matter of appointment of a Madras High Court judge.
- Attorney General said that Information on the elevation and non-elevation of judges should not be made public under the Right to Information (RTI) Act as it would be against the public interest and would put an end to the Collegium system itself.
- The Collegium which comprises the five most senior judges of the Supreme Court selects judges to the higher judiciary.However,he favoured disclosure of information about the assets of judges.
- Right to Information Act 2005 mandates timely response to citizen requests for government information.The basic objective of the Right to Information Act is to (a)empower the citizens (b)promote transparency accountability in the working of the Government (c)contain corruption and (d)make our democracy work for the people in real sense
