Historic Ruling in favour of Transparency and Accountability – The Judges’Assets case

The Delhi High Court ruled on 2nd September 2009, that the Chief Justice of India (CJI) is a “public authority” within the meaning of the Right to Information Act and has to make public the information on assets declared to him by judges under the 1997 resolution of Chief Justices. The argument that such information has been collected under fiduciary capacity by the CJI was also held to be insubstantial.. The ruling by Justice Ravindra Bhat, which came on the Supreme Court’s appeal against an almost identical order from the Central Information Commissioner (CIC), runs counter to the consistent stand of Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan that the CJI could not be termed as a public authority under RTI Act {edocs}Asset declaration judgement.pdf,650,600,link{/edocs}