Supreme Court complies with CIC order

The Central Public Information Officer of the Supreme Court has informed RTI activist Subash Chandra Agrawal that Chief Justice of India S.H. Kapadia was yet to pass appropriate orders for the setting up of a Constitution Bench to hear cases relating to declaration of assets by judges and other connected issues.

The CPIO, in her letter, said the matter was placed before the CJI on December 8, 2010. The CJI asked the Registrar to place it after winter holidays. When the matter was again placed before him on January 21, 2011 he asked the Registrar to put up the matter later. Orders for the formation of a Constitution Bench were awaited.

The Central Information Commission (CIC), in its order, had also directed the CPIO to furnish details of the correspondence between the former CJI, K.G. Balakrishnan, and the Union Law Ministry, relating to the then CJI advising P.D. Dinakaran, who was the Chief Justice of Karnataka High Court at that time, to go on leave. The CPIO said that “no document or noting or correspondence is there on record” in this regard.

By giving this information, the CPIO has complied with the directions of the CIC to furnish Mr. Agrawal information on the action taken by the Registry pursuant to the November 26, 2010 orders for constitution of a larger Bench to hear the cases relating to declaration of assets by judges.

The CIC had rejected the submission made on behalf of the CPIO that information on constitution of Benches related to in-house procedure and could not be furnished.