“The Central Public Information Officer (CPIO) of the Supreme Court is directed to provide information as to whether declaration of assets, etc., has been filed by the Honourable Judges of the Supreme Court or not within ten working days from the date of receipt of this decision notice,” a full bench of the CIC comprising Chief Information Commissioner Wajahat Habibullah and Information Commissioners M M Ansari and A N Tiwari said in a judgment late this evening.

The judgment followed the refusal by the Supreme Court to entertain a query on the declaration of assets by judges. S C Agrawal had applied to the apex court for a copy of a Full Court Resolution passed on May 7, 1997, prescribing “every judge to make a declaration of assets in form of real estate or investments held in their names or in the name of their spouses and any person dependent on them to the Chief Justice”. He had also asked if judges had complied with the Resolution, and whether any high court judge had ever declared their assets to their respective Chief Justices. The Supreme Court had parted with a copy of the Resolution, but stonewalled the other queries.

The CIC rejected the Supreme Court’s refusal, during the hearing of the case, to disclose information on the declaration of assets by judges on the ground that this information was filed by judges with the Chief Justice of India (CJI) in a “voluntary and confidential manner”, and held by the latter in his “personal capacity” owing to the “fiduciary relationship” among members of the Bench.

The Commission explained that it was the responsibility of the CJI and Chief Justices of high courts to embrace and enforce transparency in their high offices in accordance with the “unique status and position” the RTI Act gave them.

“The Chief Justice of India... and the Chief Justices of High Courts are designated as ‘competent authority’ within the meaning of Section 2(e) of the RTI Act and Section 28 of the RTI Act empowers them to frame rules to carry out provisions of the Act,” the CIC said.

“This rule-making power,” it noted, “is explicitly given for the purpose of carrying out the provisions of the RTI Act. The Act, therefore, empowers the Supreme Court and the other competent authorities under the Act and entrusts upon them an additional responsibility of ensuring that the RTI Act is implemented in letter and spirit.

“In view of this additional responsibility, the contention that provisions of RTI Act are not applicable in case of Supreme Court cannot be accepted.”

The Bench held that declaration of assets by judges cannot be classified as “personal information” of which the serving CJI was sole custodian in a personal capacity.

“The information is maintained in a confidential manner and like any other official information is available for perusal and inspection to every succeeding Chief Justice of India. It, therefore, cannot be categorised as “personal information” available with the Chief Justices in their personal capacity,” the Bench said.

The Supreme Court Registry had taken the line that the CJI’s office was a “separate” entity and not part of the “institution called the Supreme Court of India” to argue that the applicant in the case had knocked on the wrong door for information on declaration of assets by judges.

The Commission held that the CJI and the Supreme Court are “one and the same”.

“The Chief Justice of India and such number of judges as the Parliament may by law prescribe, is an institution or authority of which the Chief Justice of India is the head. The institution and its head cannot be two distinct public authorities. They are one and the same,” it said.

Therefore, “under the RTI Act, the CPIO is obliged to provide this information to a citizen making an application under the RTI Act unless the disclosure of such information is exempted under the law.”