NEW DELHI: The right to information should not be allowed to be used as a tool of surveillance to scuttle effective functioning of the judiciary, Justice N V Ramana said while holding that office of the CJI is a public authority and falls within the ambit of the RTI Act.
He also stressed that the institution (judiciary) needs to be protected from the attempts to breach its independence. Penning down a separate but concurring verdict, he said, “As a shield, the judicial independence is the basis with which judiciary has maintained its trust reposed by the citizens. In light of the same, the judiciary needs to be protected from attempts to breach its independence.”
“We may note that right to information should not be allowed to be used as a tool of surveillance to scuttle effective functioning of judiciary,” Justice Ramana said adding that the case concerns the balance which is required between two important fundamental rights — right to information and right to privacy.
Justice Ramana said the purport of section 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act is to balance privacy with public interest and under the provision and said that the first step for the adjudicating authority is to ascertain whether the information is private and whether the information relating to the concerned party has a reasonable expectation of privacy.
The legal battle