Is the Indian judiciary required to follow the principles laid down by various international bodies? List of all the rights recognised by the SC as fundamental rights in its various judgments can be obtained from its website
18 Jul, 2013Comments of the CIC
3. In his RTI application, as a good Samaritan, the Appellant had wanted to get an exhaustive list of all the rights recognised by the Supreme Court of India as fundamental rights in its various judgments/orders for enforcement of which any citizen could file a writ petition under Article 32 or 226 of the Constitution of India as the case may be. He had also wanted the opinion of the CPIO on a variety of other pious assumptions. The CPIO had informed him that all the orders and judgments passed by the Supreme Court were available freely in the website of the Supreme Court for anybody to see and access. She had also advised him to follow the procedure laid down in the Supreme Court Rules 1966 in case he wanted copies of any of the orders and judgments. Not satisfied with this reply, he had preferred an appeal. The Appellate Authority had dismissed the appeal as devoid of merit.
4. From the submissions of the Appellant during the hearing, it was quite clear that he did not know exactly what information he wanted. He seems to have some notion about what the Indian judiciary should do or not do based on some resolutions and principles laid down by various international bodies and wants the CPIO to confirm if the Indian judiciary was acting in accordance with that. This is totally beyond the scope of the duty of the CPIO. She cannot be expected to pronounce like an Oracle if the Indian judiciary is following some hallowed principles laid down by international bodies or not. All that she can provide by way of information to any information seeker is the material record held in the Supreme Court of India. Obviously, as pointed out by the CPIO, the Supreme Court does not have any such document to show if the Indian judiciary is required to follow or is following the principles laid down by various international bodies. Similarly, as far as the list of rights recognised as fundamental rights is concerned, the CPIO has rightly advised him to go through the numerous orders and judgments of the Supreme Court freely available in its website to find out which all rights have been recognised by the Supreme Court as equal to fundamental rights. This kind of research can be undertaken by the Appellant in his spare time because the CPIO cannot do the research for him.
5. There is no information to be disclosed in the case. It is disposed off accordingly.
6. Copies of this order be given free of cost to the parties.
(Satyananda Mishra)
Chief Information Commissioner
Citation: Sh. Malgaonkar Bhushan Pandurang v. Supreme Court of India in F. No. CIC/SM/A/2013/000066