In the path-breaking judgement, a three judge Bench of the high court headed by chief justice AP Shah had held that the office of the CJI comes under the ambit of the RTI Act.
The Supreme Court should restrain from filing an appeal against the Delhi High Court judgment that the office of the chief justice of India came within the ambit of the Right to Information Act, former chief justice of Punjab and Haryana High Court M Rama Jois, said today.
"It would be better the Supreme Court restrains itself from filing an appeal against the judgement of the Delhi High Court to itself", Jois, a Rajya Sabha member and former governor of Jharkhand and Bihar, said in a statement here.
He said though the Delhi High Court's full bench judgement rejecting the contention of the apex court that the CJI office was beyond the ambit of RTI Act, was "undoubtedly the proof of independence of judiciary, the fact that such an occasion arose for the high court is unfortunate".
"In my humble opinion, any appeal by the Supreme Court to itself against the judgement of Delhi High Court, would be incongruous.....common man gets an impression that appeal against the order of High Court is being filed before the respondent himself and by filing an appeal Supreme Court would be exposing itself to criticism that it is no better than an ordinary litigant", he said.
In order to ensure that the principle laid down in the high court judgment may not be extended to other matters to which doctrine of privilege extends, it would be appropriate for Central government to make a clarificatory statement to the RTI Act or to make a reference regarding scope and ambit of RTI Act by the president to Supreme Court under Article 143 of the Constitution, Justice Jois said.
In the path-breaking judgement, a three judge Bench of the high court headed by chief justice AP Shah had held that the office of the CJI comes under the ambit of the RTI Act. The apex court has decided to appeal against the judgment.
CJI KG Balakrishnan yesterday said a full Court of the apex court would consider the implication of the high court verdict.
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