The Supreme Court E-committee on November 25, 2022, launched the RTI Portal, which was in deliberation for the last few months. Earlier this month, a bench comprising of Chief Justice of India, Justice Dr. D.Y. Chandrachud, and Justice J.B. Pardiwala while hearing a PIL filed by two students said that:
“We are completely ready. Some security audits were there. We will launch it next week.”
Interestingly, a month back a similar petition was dismissed by a bench led by the former CJI, Justice U.U. Lalit, Justice Ravindra Bhat, and Justice P.S. Narasimha on September 09, 2022, with the reasoning that the Supreme Court’s E-committee was already looking into the issue.[1]
Even though the digitization process has been going on even before the Covid-19 outbreak, it was the Covid-19 pandemic that brought into limelight the necessity of using virtual platforms to carry out court proceedings and other functions. These changes were integral for the smooth functioning of the judiciary during the unprecedented pandemic days.
The right to access information is fundamental to any country that is governed by the rule of law. Transparency and good governance and the Right to Information are two integral intertwined concepts.[2] Well-informed People will be more vigilant, thus making democracy more dynamic and responsive.[3]
The judicial trend of the Supreme Court with respect to RTI:
There has been extensive litigation for bringing Supreme Court of India under the ambit of Right to Information. It took years of journey to arrive at a Conclusion that “transparency doesn’t undermine judicial independence”.
The road to transparency and accountably has gone through a long judicial process that lasted almost twelve years. It was a Single bench judgment of the Delhi court in The CPIO, Supreme Court Of India, v. Subhash Chandra Agarwal & Anr. on 2 September 2009, which held that “the CJI is a public authority under the Right to Information Act. It also held that CJI holds the information pertaining to asset declarations in his capacity as the Chief Justice of the country. His office was held to be a ‘public authority’ under the Right to Information Act. The declaration of assets by a Supreme Court judge, is “information” within the meaning of the expression, under Section 2 (f) of the Act.
A three judge bench of the Delhi High Court upheld the earlier decision in Secretary General, Supreme Court of India v. Subash Chandra,[4] and held that the Office of CJI comes under the purview of Right to information.
In Central Public Information Officer, Supreme Court of India v. Subhash Chandra Agarwal.[5] a five-bench headed by then Chief Justice of India, Justice Gogoi settled the position that the office of CJI was covered under the ambit of Right to Information. The Judgement of the apex court was surrounded around the reasoning that:
“The disclosure of information about the conduct of judges and their administration is necessary to ensure that the broader societal goals in the administration of justice are achieved.”
The apex court in the same judgment held that the Supreme Court of India is a ‘public authority, according to the definition provided under Section 2, clause (h) of the RTI Act, 2005. Following section 2 clause (e) sub-clause (ii), of the RTI act 2005, the office of the Chief Justice of India is the “competent authority” in the case of the Supreme Court.
The judgment made the CJI office more transparent and accountable to the people in the case of appointment. Privacy and accountability must go hand-in-hand; transparency cannot triumph over privacy and vice-versa.
The listing of cases and Information disclosure had been a matter of contention since sometime. Robust mechanisms of oversight and accountability are needed to tackle the same. After the recent step of live streaming of the Supreme Court proceedings, the RTI Portal will be a historic step in contributing towards the easy availability of information about the working of the judiciary which is a very useful aid for the individuals engaged in media and academia criticizing, and discussing the activities of the court while exercising their right to free expression.
Considering the Collegium system for the appointment of the Judges, the RTI portal would be a turning point as there is an essential public interest that would be fulfilled by publicizing the criteria used to evaluate people with judicial experience to higher judicial office, particularly in terms of merit, integrity, and judicial performance. Placing the criteria adopted for the appointment of Judges in the public domain will be a step toward the fulfilment of the main goal and legislative intent of Section 4 of the RTI Act.
The RTI portal will encourage transparency and accountability in the operations of the working of the apex court. Transparency is an essential component of good governance because a degree of clarity and openness about how decisions are made allows the underprivileged to participate. [6]
The online RTI portal would ensure the first step towards transparency and accountability of the Judiciary as a whole and would ensure a more streamlined and uniform Process across the country. It will Help Remove Geographical and time constraints- The online Portal would ensure speedy responses as well as ease in the application as compared to the physical form where the process tends to have longer time constraints.
The Supreme Court e Committee will be facing the challenge of first ensuring that the Online RTI portal is protected and maintained constantly, and should be able to provide an immediate response to attacks. Approximately 87,050 Cyber-attacks have happened against government organizations in the last 2 years[7]. Like any other online portal, the new SC RTI portal is also susceptible to such attacks. As the online Portal will be connected to the main database it could very well act as a back entry for non-state actors to gain access and steal, destroy or modify data saved in the database. Thus to ensure the smooth functioning of all online resources it is even more important to first set up a separate legislation that will govern the maintenance, safety, and security of both public and private online portals.
It would be very crucial to observe how the new Supreme Court RTI portal will work and how the occasional opaqueness of the judicial functioning can be converted into transparency and accountability.
If we look at the trend of the Right to Information in relation of the Supreme Court, our attention should be diverted to the RTI filed concerning the request for obtaining details of the panel which exonerated the allegation of sexual harassment against the then Chief Justice of India, Justice Ranjan Gogoi in the case of Re: Matter Of Great Public Importance Touching Upon The Independence Of Judiciary.
In reply to the RTI filled dated November 20, 2019,[8] the Supreme Court through its chief public information officer denied the details asked in the RTI with the reasoning that the information sought in the RTI cannot be provided because of the “independence of the judiciary, proportionality test, fiduciary relationship, invasion of the right to privacy and breach of duty of confidentiality, etc., concerning provisions of Section 8(1)( j) and Section 11(1) of the RTI Act, 2 0 0 5, which are applicable in the present matter”
Following the statistics available on the Supreme Court website, till date only 55 Supreme Court Judges have declared their assets, and currently, no incumbent Supreme Court judge has declared their assets on the Supreme Court website. The Declaring of the asset was an important part of the 2009 judgment.[9]
In May 1997, the Supreme Court also adopted a resolution, as per which it is mandatory for every judge of the Supreme Court to declare assets to the Chief Justice of India.[10] It also culminated in the Supreme Court confirming in November 2019 Judgement, that information as to whether judges had made declarations under the 1997 resolution to the Chief Justices of their respective courts could be sought under the Right to Information Act.
Thus, it will be interesting to watch out for information being shared through the new portal and what sort of information will be restricted from access. Transparency is an important factor in judicial institutions as it promotes, accountability, combats corruption, and helps eliminates arbitrariness of judiciary. The Supreme Court RTI portal has been up and running since Thursday 24 November, 2022.
With the advent of the RTI portal for the Supreme Court it can lead to faster release of the required documents once the application has been filed Under the RTI Act. But this increase in speed will only take place under the condition that all necessary document that have been asked for has already been converted and kept in an electronic form.
Just bringing about a portal where Citizens can apply for the information is not enough if the entire procedure still takes the same time to receive the information as it was prior to the online portals.
For faster redressal and higher transparency, all Central and state Government Offices should first maintain an electronic database that has converted all physical documentation into electronic format. Only once this step has been completed can the online Portals and e-filing systems said to be a successful initiative.
The first step towards the digitization process is to make our own data infrastructure which is mostly still held in third party servers. If the Supreme Court and other governmental organisations of the legislature and executive can each have first-party servers. With the help of ML and A.I the entire RTI process can in theory be automated to an extent.
Mohammad Nasir is Assistant Professor of Law at Aligarh Muslim University.
Salman Qasmi is a PhD candidate at the Indian Law Institute, New Delhi.
[1] Ramey Krishan Rana Vs. UOI and Ors. Dated- 09/09/2022
[2] Edwin O. Abuya, “Promoting Transparency: Courts and Operationalization of the Right of Access to Information in Kenya,” Common Law World Review 46, no. 2 (June 2017): 112-139
[3] Ram Anand Shankar, “Citizens Right to Information: Scope and Limits ,” Student
Advocate 4 (1992): 38-49
[4] AIR 2010 Del. 159.
[5] Available at: https://www.sci.gov.in/pdf/JUD_3.pdf (last visited on November 28, 2022).
[6] S. Kaavya, “Right to Information and Transparency in Administration,” Supremo Amicus
4 (2018): [497]-[501]
[7] Available at: https://www.businesstoday.in/technology/news/story/87050-cyberattacks-on-govt-organisations-in-two-years-315695-2021-12-15#:~:text=in%202020%2D21.-,Cyber%20security%20attacks%20increased%20to%2012%2C13%2C784%20till%20October%202021,in%20the%20last%20two%20years. (last visited on November 28, 2022).
[8] Available at: https://thewire.in/law/supreme-court-rejects-rti-request-panel-justice-gogo (last visited on November 26, 2022).
[9] Secretary General, Supreme Court … vs Subhash Chandra Agarwal on 12 January, 2010
[10]Available at: https://theleaflet.in/assets-of-only-two-supreme-court-judges-assorted-judges-from-four-high-courts-available-in-public-domain/#:~:text=In%202009%2C%20the%20Supreme%20Court,and%20before%20the%20Supreme%20Court. (last visited on November 26, 2022).
