The Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that the Chief Justice of India’s office comes under the transparency law, the Right to Information (RTI) Act.
“Transparency doesn’t undermine judicial independence,” Supreme Court said in a unanimous judgement upholding the Delhi High Court’s ruling.
The verdict was announced by a five-judge Constitution bench of the apex court headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi.
The other members of the bench included Justices N V Ramana, D Y Chandrachud, Deepak Gupta and Sanjiv Khanna.
The bench had on April 4 reserved its order on the appeals filed in 2010 by the Supreme Court secretary general and its central public information officer against the high court and the central information commission’s (CIC’s) orders.
In 2010, the Delhi High Court had held that the office of the Chief Justice of India comes within the ambit of the RTI law, saying judicial independence was not a judge’s privilege but a responsibility cast upon him.
