{"id":222035,"date":"2019-11-13T14:53:16","date_gmt":"2019-11-13T09:23:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.scconline.com\/blog\/?p=222035"},"modified":"2019-11-14T18:16:33","modified_gmt":"2019-11-14T12:46:33","slug":"breaking-office-of-cji-comes-under-the-purview-of-rti-sc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scconline.com\/blog\/post\/2019\/11\/13\/breaking-office-of-cji-comes-under-the-purview-of-rti-sc\/","title":{"rendered":"Here’s why Supreme Court held that the Office of CJI comes under the purview of RTI"},"content":{"rendered":"

Supreme Court<\/strong><\/span>: In yet another historic verdict, the 5-judge constitution Bench of Ranjan Gogoi, CJ and NV Ramana, Dr. DY Chandrachud, Deepak Gupta and Sanjiv Khanna, JJ has held that the office of the Chief Justice of India comes under the purview of the Right to Information. In the 250-pages long judgment, Justice Sanjiv Khanna wrote the mjority opinion for the Bench and Justices NV Ramana and DY Chandrachud gave separate but concurring opinion.<\/p>\n

Majority Verdict penned by Sanjiv Khanna, J<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

\u201cJudicial independence and accountability go hand in hand as accountability ensures, and is a facet of judicial independence<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Section 8(1)(j) vis-\u00e0-vis Section 11 of the RTI Act <\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n

Section 8(1)(j) specifically refers to invasion of the right to privacy of an individual and excludes from disclosure information that would cause unwarranted invasion of privacy of such individual, unless the disclosure would satisfy the larger public interest test. This clause also draws a distinction in its treatment of personal information, whereby disclosure of such information is exempted if such information has no relation to public activity or interest.<\/p>\n

On the relative scope of both the provisions, the Court said,<\/p>\n

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\u201cthe scope of \u2018information\u2019 under Section 11 is much broader than that of clause (j) to Section 8 (1), as it could include information that is personal as well as information that concerns the government and its working, among others, which relates to or is supplied by a third party and treated as confidential. Third-party could include any individual, natural or juristic entity including the public authority.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Public Interest Test<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n

The Court said that the public interest test in the context of the RTI Act would mean reflecting upon the object and purpose behind the right to information, the right to privacy and consequences of invasion, and breach of confidentiality and possible harm and injury that would be caused to the third party, with reference to a particular information and the person.<\/p>\n

Some of the important aspects highlighted by the Court are as follows:<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n