CIC asks Justice Dept to respond to fund spent on SC judge trips

The CIC has directed the Dept of Justice, Union Law Ministry, to “respond” to a RTI query seeking details of public funds spent on official foreign trips of SC judges.

The Central Information Commission has directed the Department of Justice, Union Law Ministry, to “respond” to a Right to Information query seeking details of public funds spent on official foreign trips of Supreme Court judges.

The recent decision by Chief Information Commissioner Wajahat Habibullah follows a “war of letters” between the SC and the department on which of them is the public authority concerned to divulge the details sought in the RTI plea.

The applicant, S C Aggarwal, had on May 21, 2008 applied to the PMO, the Department of Justice and the SC, seeking information on the procedure for sanctioning foreign trips of apex court judges.

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Specifically, the three-pronged request sought details on the rules, making it mandatory for the judges to opt for the shortest air-routes for official tours abroad, whether their wives were entitled to accompany them and expenses paid by the Government.

Trouble between the Justice Department and the Registry of the apex court started in July 2008 when the former’s Central Public Information Officer, K Gurtu, denied having any knowledge of the expense details and pushed the ball into the court of Ashok Kumar, his counterpart in the Supreme Court.

“It would not be correct to say that the expenditure spend on the foreign visits of the Hon’ble Judges of the Supreme Court would be known to the Department of Justice, as the final figures of amount spent would be known only to the Registry of the Supreme Court of India,” he claimed.

Kumar’s response in the negative fell short with a later letter from S Twickly, Deputy Secretary with the Justice Department and successor of Gurtu, reiterating the point that only the Supreme Court can provide the information sought for.

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With hardly any positive developments from the duo’s side, Aggarwal went on to file an appeal with the CIC in which he described the flurry of exchange of communications between the apex court and the department as a “war of letters”.

Representing the SC, Additional Solicitor General Amarendra Sharan quoted that the Department is by its own admission the authority concerned to “process and recommend the foreign tours of judges to the Prime Minister” — an opinion seconded by the PMO before the CIC.

“Since both the PMO and Supreme Court are in unison on this point there is a consensus among all the other stakeholders that the Ministry of Law and Justice is the concerned public authority,”observed the Bench.