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FINE BALANCE SC okays disclosing asset details of justices, says public interest must be weighed for other requests

NEWDELHI: A five-judge Constitution bench of the Supreme Court struck a blow for transparency whenitruledonWednesdaythat the office of the Chief Justice of India (CJI) and other judges of the Supreme Court come under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, effectively placing details of the assets of the judges in the public domain and lifting the opaquenesssurroundingadministrative decisions of India’s top court, although some experts said enough hasn’t been done.

The bench declared the office of CJI to be a public authority and held that information held by it can be sought under the RTI Act, although it gave significant discretionary powers to the Central Public Information Officer, or CPIO, of the court on a caseby-case basis to decide on what should be shared in “public interest”.

RTI activist SC Agarwal lauded the judgment and said thatitwouldhaveawiderimpact in favour of transparency. “It’s a landmark judgment and will induce transparency in the judiciary and I think this should be followed by all. After this judgment, all information pertaining to administrative decisions subject to exemptions of the RTI is open,” he said. But there was some criticism of the ruling too.

Alok Prasanna Kumar, a senior resident fellow at the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, said in an analysis of the judgment (see page 13) that the court should have weighed in on what sorts of information is to be released in “public interest” and what is needed to be kept confidential.