New Delhi: The Central Information
Commission has directed the Supreme Court to make public
details of cases where orders have been reserved so that
citizens know about the "status of pendency".
Overruling the stand of the apex court that it does not
maintain such data, Chief Information Commissioner Satyananda
Mishra directed it to "start the practice now" and make
arrangements in future for compiling and disclosing such
records in public domain.
The case relates to the plea of Commodore (Retd) Lokesh K
Batra who sought to know from the Supreme Court the details of
instances where arguments have been heard but the orders
reserved by the judges.
The Supreme Court said in its reply that it does not
maintain the information in the form sought by Batra.
The apex court counsel argued before the CIC that orders
are "ordinarily" passed within two-four weeks of reserving the
decisions but no data were being maintained about those rare
cases where orders have been reserved for a longer period.
He said that to compile such cases, each individual case
file would have to be scrutinised, which is a nearly
impossible task given the volume of cases pending in the
Supreme Court.
Rejecting the arguments, Mishra said "the total number
of such cases in which orders are reserved should be duly
intimated to the general public. Now that the benefit of
computerisation is available, placing such data in public
domain should not be particularly difficult."
"If the Supreme Court is not maintaining such data, it
should do so now in order to facilitate the citizens to learn
about the status of pendency before the Supreme Court," he
said adding information should be furnished within 15 days of
receiving the orders.
PTI
First Published: Thursday, August 04, 2011, 21:55