HC to hear SC plea on assets declaration

The Delhi high Court admitted on Wednesday an appeal filed by the Supreme Court’s chief public information officer (CPIO) contesting a single-judge bench’s judgment that the chief justice of India (CJI) should disclose information on assets declaration under the Right to Information Act (RTI) and fixed November 12 and 13 for hearing the matter.

Before admitting the appeal, a bench of chief justice AP Shah and justice S Murlidhar examined the CPIO’s appeal raising 58 grounds for questioning justice S Ravinder Bhat’s lauded September 2 judgment.

Attorney general Goolam E Vahanvati , who appeared for the SC, argued that a 1997 all-judges resolution to declare their assets to the CJI was voluntary in nature and not binding.

“If the resolution (on assets declaration) is not binding, then the resolution passed to maintain judicial values in court proceedings can also be said to be non-binding and a judge, against whom an in-house inquiry is conducted in case of deviation, can object to it,” the bench told Vahanvati.

Justice Bhat said the CJI’s office comes within RTI purview and details of judges’ assets should be revealed under the Act. The court did not pass a stay order on the judgment as the counsel did not seek so.

Opposing the AG’s plea, Prashant Bhushan, counsel for RTI applicant Subhash Chandra Agrawal, argued that such an appeal would cause disrepute to the system. The AG, however, objected and said “we are capable of taking care of our system and we can take care of the consequences of filing appeals in this matter”.