NEW DELHI: The High Court has set aside a Central Information Commission (CIC) order directing disclosure of information on cases in which judgements were reserved but not pronounced within two months by former judge, Justice A K Sikri.
Justice Sikri was appointed as the HC judge in July 1999. He was elevated as the Chief Justice of the Punjab and Haryana High Court in September 2012.
Justice Amit Mahajan, in a judgement passed on October 29, said that although timely delivery of judgements is undoubtedly a matter of public concern, the Right to Information (RTI) Act provides access only to information that is available to the public authority.
Holding that the public authority is not obliged to collect and collate information, the judge said that concerns of public interest cannot compel the creation of information which is not maintained.
In 2009, an ex-judicial officer, P D Gupta, had sought complete details of all cases heard by Justice Sikri, singly or in a division bench in the high court, in which judgement was delivered more than two months after conclusion of arguments.
The Public Information Officer (PIO) assailed the CIC’s May 2011 order which directed disclosure of the information sought by Gupta “for a period of two years only preceding the date of the RTI application”, contending that such data was not maintained by the functionaries of the HC.
The court observed that pursuant to the Supreme Court laying down guidelines with respect to the time frame during which the courts should pass judgements, the HC’s registrar general, in 2003, directed all the court masters to prepare, a monthly list of cases where the judgements are reserved by the respective benches.