Day 56 – Q 5.The judiciary India has pronounced several judgements on the RTI Act. However, the judiciary itself is outside the purview of the RTI. Is it not unethical? Critically comment.

5. The judiciary India has pronounced several judgements on the RTI Act. However, the judiciary itself is outside the purview of the RTI. Is it not unethical? Critically comment. 

भारत की न्यायपालिका ने आरटीआई अधिनियम पर कई निर्णय सुनाए हैं। हालांकि, न्यायपालिका स्वयं आरटीआई के दायरे से बाहर है। क्या यह अनैतिक नहीं है? समालोचनात्मक टिप्पणी करें।

Introduction:

The RTI mechanism emerged fundamentally as a demonstration of the desire to move the process of democracy towards participatory and contributively democracy, thereby strengthening it.

Body

Background:

• The Supreme Court lauded the role of the Right to Information (RTI) Act as an “integral part of any vibrant democracy.” But the apex court itself has refused to come under the ambit of the information transparency law for the past one decade.
• The court has firmly resisted back-to-back decisions of the Central Information Commission (CIC) and the Delhi High Court to open up to the RTI regime as far as the issues of Collegium and judicial appointments are concerned. 
• In fact, the appeal filed by the Supreme Court against public disclosure under RTI has been pending in the Supreme Court since 2010.

The judiciary itself is outside the purview of the RTI; it is unethical:

• Personal details: The issue involves the personal assets of the judges and results of the collegiums to fall within the scope of the RTI Act.
• Ruin the ideology: The RTI regime will destroy the independence of the judiciary, the disclosure of decisions of the collegiums will ruin the future of the judges, and the litigants would lose their confidence in them.
• Interference in judiciary: The question involved was whether disclosure of information under RTI about judicial appointments, transfers of Supreme Court judges, etc., would amount to interference in judicial independence. 
• Confidential matters: Certain information cannot be revealed to the public-at-large, as it has all the potential of deteriorating the independence of judiciary seems to naïve to be acceptable on pragmatic grounds.

The judiciary itself is outside the purview of the RTI; it is ethical:

• Section 24: For any information to be exempted under the Act, it must fall under the purview of the exemptions provided by the statute under Sec. 24. Interestingly, the section does not include the judicial organ of the Government. This makes the whole issue of applicability of the Act on the judiciary indisputable.
• Section 10: Sec. 10 of the Act provides with the rule of severability which means that if the disclosure of information involves private information, such disclosure may reasonably be severed or separated from any part of the information and other relevant information will be made available to the public. Example, if the information involves private information that has a connection with the health or life of the judge which he feels should be protected under the umbrella of his Right to Health and Privacy
• To protect democracy: Another reason to allow the application of RTI on the judiciary is the protection of the doctrine of distribution of powers between organs of the Government. Like most of the democracies of the world, the executive and the legislature are directly questioned for their actions. 

Conclusion

In order to attract the provisions of the Act, the information sought must have a larger public interest. If disclosure of assets of the judiciary is essential to be kept open in the public domain, then there is no denying the fact that the same should be done unarguably. If not, then the judge has no reason to fear such disclosure. The only thing which the judiciary should worry about is to secure public confidence.