SC refuses to disclose enquiry report on allegations against Justice Ganguly
1 Feb, 2014A three-judge committee, comprising Justice RM Lodha, Justice HL Dattu and Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai, was constituted by the Chief Justice of India to look into the allegations of misbehaviour made against Justice AK Ganguly by a law intern.
In this regard, an application was filed with the Supreme Court under the Right to Information (RTI) Act seeking to get the details about the report of the committee submitted to the chief justice.
Replying to the query, the Additional Registrar and the CPIO of Supreme Court said that the requested information could not be furnished as the proceedings of the committee were part of an "in-house procedure" which is expressly forbidden. For denying the information, the court cited Section 8(1)(b) Notwithstanding anything contained in this Act, there shall be no obligation to give any citizen, information which has been expressly forbidden to be published by any court of law or tribunal or the disclosure of which may constitute contempt of court; of the RTI Act under which disclosure of any such information is prohibited whose publication has been expressly prohibited by a court of law or tribunal or the sharing of which may constitute contempt of court. The apex court added that the operative part of the committee report is already available on the website of the court.