New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday while holding that the office of Chief Justice of India (CJI) is a public authority under the Right to Information Act, said that disclosure related to assets of judges should not impinge upon the personal information and right to privacy of the judges.
The top court order came while dismissing the appeal of Secretary-General of the Supreme court and directed the CPIO, Supreme Court of India to furnish information on the judges of the Supreme Court who had declared their assets.
"Such disclosure would not, in any way, impinge upon the personal information and right to privacy of the judges. The fiduciary relationship rule in terms of clause (e) to Section 8 (1) of the RTI Act is inapplicable," a five-judge Constitution bench, headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and comprising Justices N.V. Ramana, D.Y. Chandrachud, Deepak Gupta and Sanjiv Khanna said.
Under clause (e) of Section 8(1) of the RTI Act, there shall be no obligation to give any citizen information available to a person in his fiduciary relationship, unless the competent authority is satisfied that the larger public interest warrants the disclosure of such information.
"It would not affect the right to confidentiality of the judges and their right to protect personal information and privacy, which would be the case where details and contents of personal assets in the declaration are called for and sought, in which event the public interest test as applicable vide Section 8(1)(j) and proviso to Section 11 (1) of the RTI Act would come into operation," the court said.