Delhi HC rejects plea to make medical reimbursements of SC judges public

Delhi High Court on Friday dismissed a plea seeking details of medical reimbursements of Supreme Court judges, saying it had personal information and providing it would amount to invasion of their privacy.

A bench of Chief Justice G Rohini and Justice Deepa Sharma said there was no larger public interest involved in seeking details of medical facilities availed by individual judges and no direction whatsoever can be issued under the Right to Information (RTI) Act.

The court passed the judgement on RTI applicant Subhash Chandra Agarwal's appeal against the order of a single judge bench of the High Court which had set aside the Central Information Commission's (CIC) direction to provide the information as being "erroneous".

"The information sought by appellant includes details of the medical facilities availed by the individual judges. The same being personal information, we are of the view that providing such information would undoubtedly amount to invasion of their privacy. We have also taken note of the fact that it was conceded before the single judge by the appellant that no larger public interest is involved in seeking details of medical facilities availed by individual judges....we are unable to understand how the public interest requires disclosure of the details of the medical facilities availed by the individual judges. In the absence of any such larger public interest, no direction whatsoever can be issued under the RTI Act by the appellate authorities," it said.

The court also noted in its six-page judgement that "the total expenditure incurred for the medical treatment of the judges for the period in question was already furnished by the Central Public Information Officer by his letter dated August 30, 2011, and "it is not the case of the appellant that the said expenditure is excessive or exorbitant".

"The CIC order of February 1, 2012 is unsustainable and the same has rightly been set aside by the single judge," it added. 

Agarwal had contended in his appeal that "salaries, pensions and allowances payable to or in respect of judges of Supreme Court are to be charged under Consolidated Fund of India", as per the Constitution.

"Therefore, source of reimbursement money of the medical bills of Supreme Court judges comes from the hard-earned money of citizens as taxpayers," he had said.

The Supreme Court registry had opposed the contention saying the information sought was not in the public interest. CIC had passed its order on Agarwal's plea against the apex court's response that it does not keep records of medical reimbursement of individual judges and declining to furnish him the information sought by him under the transparency law.

The Commission had in 2010, while asking the apex court's registry to make arrangements to maintain details of medical reimbursement made to judges, specified that the same be maintained in digital format so that their retrieval and disclosure could be easier.

However, the apex court had refused, citing a stay by the Delhi High Court in a similar case, prompting Agarwal to again approach CIC. In its second order of 2012, CIC had directed the apex court to place the order before the Secretary General of the Supreme Court so that he can ensure its compliance. It is against this order that the apex court registry had moved the High Court in appeal.

The single-judge bench, while allowing the appeal, had said that "information relating to the medical records would be personal information which is exempt from disclosure under the Act". "The medical bills would indicate the treatment and/or medicines required by individuals and this would clearly be an invasion of the privacy," it had said.