Tribune News Service
New Delhi, April 3
If collegium was brought under the RTI Act, senior judges who were part of it will not be able to function independently and have free discussion about candidates in the zone of consideration for elevation, Attorney General KK Venugopal told the Supreme Court on Wednesday.
“If information concerning collegium functioning is put in public domain, great damage will be done to the institution”, Venugopal, who is representing the Supreme Court Secretary General, told a five-judge Constitution Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi.
“File noting by collegium in this regard could have adverse information against a judge, its disclosure will hurt the person who is overlooked. Such disclosures will result in him being humiliated. His family will stand ostracised; worst of all his independence will be affected. His entire career will be ruined as public and lawyers will lose confidence in him,” Venugopal said.
The CJI commented, “You are saying that if brought under RTI, collegium and government will shy away from recording real reasons for overlooking a judge or lawyer for elevation and appointment… disclosing reasons under RTI will destroy the career and family of rejected judges and lawyers.”
The Bench — which also includes Justices NV Ramana, DY Chandrachud, Deepak Gupta and Sanjiv Khanna — is hearing appeals filed by Supreme Court Secretary General against various orders passed by CIC and high courts on the applicability of the RTI Act to the judiciary. All these orders of CIC/high courts were stayed by the Supreme Court and the issues were referred to a Constitution Bench.
The issues under consideration relate to disclosure of correspondence between the collegium and the government, disclosure of assets of judges and letters exchanged on appointment of a Madras HC judge. One of the cases relates to disclosure of complete correspondence, including file noting, exchanged between constitutional authorities with regard to appointments of Justices HL Dattu, AK Ganguly and RM Lodha in supersession of Justices AP Shah, AK Patnaik and VK Gupta. The Central Information Commission had ordered disclosure of information under RTI Act.
Venugopal described as “very idealistic” the 1981 seven-judge Bench ruling in SP Gupta case relied upon by the CIC in its impugned order. On the issue of disclosure of assets of judges, the Attorney General said it would amount to invasion of privacy. He, however, said it was a matter best left to judges to take a call as to whether such information should be disclosed in greater public interest.
The CJI commented, “There are judges who started off rich and have ended up poor... How many people are interested in that?”
The Attorney General said right to know is part of right to freedom of speech and expression under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution which was subject to reasonable restrictions under Article 19(2). There were constitutional limitations to right to know and the CIC ignored exemption for information held in fiduciary relationship, he said.
As the CJI pointed out that the information sought was used for appointment to a public office, Venugopal said it would depend on the nature of public office and disclosure of highly confidential information could be deleterious to functioning of judiciary.
‘Discussions can’t be made public’
"Judges perform Constitutional function as collegium members and hold ‘free and frank’ discussions on elevation and appointment of judges and their deliberations cannot be made public as it would breach their ‘privilege and fiduciary’ position. " — KK Venugopal, Attorney General
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