In 2009, a full court of the Supreme Court of India took a significant decision – one which came about after great pressure from public and from within the judiciary..On August 26 that year, the country’s apex court decided to publish details of judges’ assets on the court website. This decision was taken 12 years after a resolution was passed by another full court meeting on May 7, 1997 as per which judges of the Supreme Court were mandated to disclose their assets to the Chief Justice of India..Though the Supreme Court website states that the disclosure of assets to the CJI is on a voluntary basis, the language of the 1997 resolution does not seem to give that impression..According to an article published in Frontline, the resolution passed by the Full Court in 1997 reads as under:.“Resolved further that every judge should make a declaration of all his/her assets in the form of real estate or investments (held by him/her in his/her own name or in the name of his/her spouse or any person dependent on him/her) within a reasonable time of assuming office and in the case of sitting judges within a reasonable time of adoption of this resolution and thereafter whenever any acquisition of a substantial nature is made, it shall be disclosed within a reasonable time. The declaration so made should be to the Chief Justice of the court. The Chief Justice should make a similar declaration for the purpose of the record. The declaration made by the judges or the Chief Justice, as the case may be, shall be confidential.”.It states in clear terms that “every judge” should declare “all his/her assets in the form of real estate or investments” within a “reasonable time” of being elevated to the Bench..Some history.In keeping with the letter and spirit of the 1997 resolution, the declaration made by judges remained a closely guarded secret until 2009. It was under the then Chief Justice of India, KG Balakrishnan, that a full court meeting of the judges resulted in the publication of assets on the court website..This decision has an interesting history behind it starting with an RTI application filed by activist, Subhash Chandra Agarwal seeking details of assets of Supreme Court judges. Below is a timeline of the same..May 17, 1997: Full Court meeting of Supreme Court judges culminating in the resolution that judges should declare their assets and the assets of their spouses to the Chief Justice of India..November 10, 2007: RTI activist Subhash Chandra Agarwal requisitions the Central Public Information Officer, Supreme Court of India to furnish a copy of the resolution dated May 7, 1997 and also seeks information relating to declaration of assets furnished by the judges.November 30, 2007: First part of the RTI request is allowed by the CPIO but the second part is rejected..December 8, 2007: Agarwal files appeal with the First Appellate Authority which remands the matter back to the CPIO..January 12, 2008: CPIO dismisses the request once again; states that Agarwal should approach the Public authorities of the High Courts and not the CPIO..March 5, 2008: Agarwal approaches the Central Information Commission (CIC) challenging the CPIO’s decision..January 6, 2009: CIC rules in favour of Agarwal, directs Supreme Court to disclose the information sought by Agarwal..January 17, 2009: Supreme Court challenges the said ruling of CIC before Delhi High Court..August 26, 2009: Even as the matter was pending before the Delhi High Court, a Full court meeting is convened in which judges decide to publish the details of their assets and liabilities on the website of the Supreme Court..September 2, 2009: A single judge of the High Court (Justice Ravindra Bhat) upholds CIC order and holds that the office of Chief Justice of India falls within the ambit of RTI..January 12, 2010: A 3-judge Bench (CJ AP Shah, Justices S Muralidhar and Vikramajit Sen) of the High Court confirms the decision of the single judge..Subsequently, the Supreme Court filed an appeal against the decision of the Delhi High Court in the apex court. The decision taken in the full court meeting in 2009 though, put to rest most of hullaballoo surrounding the assets of judges..Fact check: Assets – published and not published.Since the 2009 resolution, the details of fifty-five judges have been published on the website. Thirty-four of those are retired judges while twenty-one are sitting judges. The asset profile of Justice Sudhansu Jyoti Mukhopadhaya is still under the head of sitting judges though he retired on March 14, 2015..Among the sitting judges, assets of five judges are yet to be published on the Supreme Court website..These five judges are Justices Arun Mishra, Rohinton Fali Nariman, UU Lalit, Amitava Roy and Abhay Manohar Sapre. These judges were elevated to the Supreme Court more than a year ago, and it is unclear why their details are not up on the site. One possibility could be that the above five judges have declared their assets to the CJI but it has not been published on the website..RTI v. Supreme Court.The larger issue though, that of this tussle between the RTI Act and the Supreme Court, is far from over. Though the court has been a vehement advocate of expanding the scope of the RTI Act, it has distanced itself from its own mighty jurisprudence when it comes to parting with information pertaining to itself..Very recently, the court had directed the Reserve bank of India to disclose default in loans taken from public sector banks by industrialists, the top 100 defaulters, etc. It had also come down upon the growing trend of institutions to evade public queries under the guise of one of the exceptions given under Section 8 of Act..However, in July last year, the Court refused to divulge details regarding medical expenses incurred by Supreme Court judges. A three-judge Bench of Chief Justice HL Dattu and Justices Arun Mishra and Amitava Roy refused to entertain an appeal from a Delhi High Court judgment which had held that information pertaining to medical expenses incurred by Supreme Court judges are outside the purview of the RTI Act..Similarly, the Court dismissed an appeal against a judgment of the Delhi High Court which had held that the Supreme Court is not required to maintain particulars of judgments reserved, and the period for which they have been reserved. This decision also had its genesis in an RTI application filed by one Lokesh Batra seeking the time period for which judgments have been reserved by the Supreme Court..Ray of Hope.But there is still a ray of hope in the form of an appeal filed by the Supreme Court against a verdict of the Central Information Commission (CIC) which is still pending before the Supreme Court. This appeal is filed against a direction issued by the CIC to the Supreme Court to furnish details of the correspondence exchanged between Constitutional authorities relating to the appointment of three judges..The RTI applicant in this case is, once again, Subhash Chandra Agarwal. The information sought for is with respect to the appointment of Justices HL Dattu, AK Ganguly and RM Lodha which were allegedly objected to by the Prime Minister’s Office since they were appointed superseding three other judges senior to them..On November 26, 2010, a Division Bench of Justices B Sudershan Reddy and SS Nijjar framed three questions after opining that the matter requires to be considered by a Constitution Bench..The three questions were:. Whether the concept of independence of judiciary requires and demands the prohibition of furnishing of the information sought? Whether the information sought for amounts to interference in the functioning of the judiciary? Whether the information sought for cannot be furnished to avoid any erosion in the credibility of the decisions and to ensure a free and frank expression of honest opinion by all the constitutional functionaries, which is essential for effective consultation and for taking the right decision? Whether the information sought for is exempt under Section 8(i)(j) of the Right to Information Act?.The Division Bench also noted in its order that the above questions “involve the interpretation of the Constitution and raise great and fundamental issues”..The Constitution Bench has not been constituted till date and the three questions remain unanswered. All the High Courts in the country have also been arraigned as parties to the case..Will this case finally lead to a movement towards greater transparency in the Supreme Court? Only time will tell; the ball is in the Court’s court, as always!
In 2009, a full court of the Supreme Court of India took a significant decision – one which came about after great pressure from public and from within the judiciary..On August 26 that year, the country’s apex court decided to publish details of judges’ assets on the court website. This decision was taken 12 years after a resolution was passed by another full court meeting on May 7, 1997 as per which judges of the Supreme Court were mandated to disclose their assets to the Chief Justice of India..Though the Supreme Court website states that the disclosure of assets to the CJI is on a voluntary basis, the language of the 1997 resolution does not seem to give that impression..According to an article published in Frontline, the resolution passed by the Full Court in 1997 reads as under:.“Resolved further that every judge should make a declaration of all his/her assets in the form of real estate or investments (held by him/her in his/her own name or in the name of his/her spouse or any person dependent on him/her) within a reasonable time of assuming office and in the case of sitting judges within a reasonable time of adoption of this resolution and thereafter whenever any acquisition of a substantial nature is made, it shall be disclosed within a reasonable time. The declaration so made should be to the Chief Justice of the court. The Chief Justice should make a similar declaration for the purpose of the record. The declaration made by the judges or the Chief Justice, as the case may be, shall be confidential.”.It states in clear terms that “every judge” should declare “all his/her assets in the form of real estate or investments” within a “reasonable time” of being elevated to the Bench..Some history.In keeping with the letter and spirit of the 1997 resolution, the declaration made by judges remained a closely guarded secret until 2009. It was under the then Chief Justice of India, KG Balakrishnan, that a full court meeting of the judges resulted in the publication of assets on the court website..This decision has an interesting history behind it starting with an RTI application filed by activist, Subhash Chandra Agarwal seeking details of assets of Supreme Court judges. Below is a timeline of the same..May 17, 1997: Full Court meeting of Supreme Court judges culminating in the resolution that judges should declare their assets and the assets of their spouses to the Chief Justice of India..November 10, 2007: RTI activist Subhash Chandra Agarwal requisitions the Central Public Information Officer, Supreme Court of India to furnish a copy of the resolution dated May 7, 1997 and also seeks information relating to declaration of assets furnished by the judges.November 30, 2007: First part of the RTI request is allowed by the CPIO but the second part is rejected..December 8, 2007: Agarwal files appeal with the First Appellate Authority which remands the matter back to the CPIO..January 12, 2008: CPIO dismisses the request once again; states that Agarwal should approach the Public authorities of the High Courts and not the CPIO..March 5, 2008: Agarwal approaches the Central Information Commission (CIC) challenging the CPIO’s decision..January 6, 2009: CIC rules in favour of Agarwal, directs Supreme Court to disclose the information sought by Agarwal..January 17, 2009: Supreme Court challenges the said ruling of CIC before Delhi High Court..August 26, 2009: Even as the matter was pending before the Delhi High Court, a Full court meeting is convened in which judges decide to publish the details of their assets and liabilities on the website of the Supreme Court..September 2, 2009: A single judge of the High Court (Justice Ravindra Bhat) upholds CIC order and holds that the office of Chief Justice of India falls within the ambit of RTI..January 12, 2010: A 3-judge Bench (CJ AP Shah, Justices S Muralidhar and Vikramajit Sen) of the High Court confirms the decision of the single judge..Subsequently, the Supreme Court filed an appeal against the decision of the Delhi High Court in the apex court. The decision taken in the full court meeting in 2009 though, put to rest most of hullaballoo surrounding the assets of judges..Fact check: Assets – published and not published.Since the 2009 resolution, the details of fifty-five judges have been published on the website. Thirty-four of those are retired judges while twenty-one are sitting judges. The asset profile of Justice Sudhansu Jyoti Mukhopadhaya is still under the head of sitting judges though he retired on March 14, 2015..Among the sitting judges, assets of five judges are yet to be published on the Supreme Court website..These five judges are Justices Arun Mishra, Rohinton Fali Nariman, UU Lalit, Amitava Roy and Abhay Manohar Sapre. These judges were elevated to the Supreme Court more than a year ago, and it is unclear why their details are not up on the site. One possibility could be that the above five judges have declared their assets to the CJI but it has not been published on the website..RTI v. Supreme Court.The larger issue though, that of this tussle between the RTI Act and the Supreme Court, is far from over. Though the court has been a vehement advocate of expanding the scope of the RTI Act, it has distanced itself from its own mighty jurisprudence when it comes to parting with information pertaining to itself..Very recently, the court had directed the Reserve bank of India to disclose default in loans taken from public sector banks by industrialists, the top 100 defaulters, etc. It had also come down upon the growing trend of institutions to evade public queries under the guise of one of the exceptions given under Section 8 of Act..However, in July last year, the Court refused to divulge details regarding medical expenses incurred by Supreme Court judges. A three-judge Bench of Chief Justice HL Dattu and Justices Arun Mishra and Amitava Roy refused to entertain an appeal from a Delhi High Court judgment which had held that information pertaining to medical expenses incurred by Supreme Court judges are outside the purview of the RTI Act..Similarly, the Court dismissed an appeal against a judgment of the Delhi High Court which had held that the Supreme Court is not required to maintain particulars of judgments reserved, and the period for which they have been reserved. This decision also had its genesis in an RTI application filed by one Lokesh Batra seeking the time period for which judgments have been reserved by the Supreme Court..Ray of Hope.But there is still a ray of hope in the form of an appeal filed by the Supreme Court against a verdict of the Central Information Commission (CIC) which is still pending before the Supreme Court. This appeal is filed against a direction issued by the CIC to the Supreme Court to furnish details of the correspondence exchanged between Constitutional authorities relating to the appointment of three judges..The RTI applicant in this case is, once again, Subhash Chandra Agarwal. The information sought for is with respect to the appointment of Justices HL Dattu, AK Ganguly and RM Lodha which were allegedly objected to by the Prime Minister’s Office since they were appointed superseding three other judges senior to them..On November 26, 2010, a Division Bench of Justices B Sudershan Reddy and SS Nijjar framed three questions after opining that the matter requires to be considered by a Constitution Bench..The three questions were:. Whether the concept of independence of judiciary requires and demands the prohibition of furnishing of the information sought? Whether the information sought for amounts to interference in the functioning of the judiciary? Whether the information sought for cannot be furnished to avoid any erosion in the credibility of the decisions and to ensure a free and frank expression of honest opinion by all the constitutional functionaries, which is essential for effective consultation and for taking the right decision? Whether the information sought for is exempt under Section 8(i)(j) of the Right to Information Act?.The Division Bench also noted in its order that the above questions “involve the interpretation of the Constitution and raise great and fundamental issues”..The Constitution Bench has not been constituted till date and the three questions remain unanswered. All the High Courts in the country have also been arraigned as parties to the case..Will this case finally lead to a movement towards greater transparency in the Supreme Court? Only time will tell; the ball is in the Court’s court, as always!