It refers to two senior judges of Supreme Court namely Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Madan Bhimarao Lokur sending on April 22, 2018, a two-sentence letter to Chief Justice of India (CJI) for calling full-court meeting of all the judges to discuss future of Supreme Court and institutional issues. This letter is subsequent to some other correspondence with CJI by brother judges.
Root cause of disease is opaqueness even at administrative side of judicial system. Even though Right-To-Information (RTI) Act covers administrative side of judicial system, Supreme Court registry challenged several CIC-verdicts allowing disclosure on several aspects which also includes correspondence with CJI with all the CIC-verdicts lying under stay-order of Apex Court for last about nine long years with Division Bench ordering for la larger bench, and the larger three-member bench desiring matter to be put before a Constitutional Bench.
With everything involving differences between judges being open now with judges holding press-conference and contents of their correspondence with CJI published in media, stay-order by Apex Court on CIC-verdict allowing disclosure of Correspondence of India is meaningless. Supreme Court registry should withdraw its Special Leave Petitions numbering 32855 and 32856 of 2009. Significantly correspondence allowed by the Central Information Commission related to a letter written by the then Madras High Court judge to the then CJI revealing his being influenced by the then Union Minister. Even it was in interest of independence of judiciary to disclose sought information by Supreme Court registry at its own even without matter reaching to CIC.
Subhash Chandra Agrawal
(The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.)
