Supreme Court cannot deny information under RTI Act: CIC

15 May, 2011

Overturning its previous orders, the Central Information Commission has held that the Supreme Court cannot deny information under the RTI Act even if an applicant has "other methods" available, under the apex court rules, to get it. Earlier, in a number of cases, the then Chief Information Commissioner Wajahat Habibullah had held that if there were existing laws and rules for furnishing information in an organisation, information seeker had to use them and not the Right to Information Act. Accepting the arguments of the Supreme Court, he had said that as per Section 22 of the RTI Act, the transparency law would prevail over the existing laws only when there is "inconsistency" between the two. The apex court had argued that since it already had a mechanism for furnishing information on judicial proceedings and documents, under the Supreme Court rules, these records cannot be provided under the RTI Act as there was no "inconsistency" between the two. Setting aside these arguments, Information Commissioner Shailesh Gandhi has now said, "This Commission respectfully disagrees with the decision of the then Chief Information Commissioner that the PIO, Supreme Court may choose to deny the information sought under the RTI Act and ask an applicant to apply for information under Order XII of the SC Rules." He said where there are methods of giving information by any public authority which were in existence before the advent of the RTI Act, the citizen may insist on invoking the provisions of the RTI Act to obtain the information. "It is the citizen's prerogative to decide under which mechanism i.e. under the method prescribed by the public authority or the RTI Act, he/she would like to obtain the information," Gandhi said. The case relates to RTI applicant R S Mishra who sought to know from the Supreme Court, through nine queries, the status report on certain letters and reasons for judicial decisions, but the information was denied to him. He was advised by the Supreme Court to come through its rules for getting requisite documents. The Commission would like to highlight that just as the SC Rules put in place by the apex court are not abrogated, the RTI Act passed by Parliament also cannot be suspended, Gandhi said. "If the PIO has received a request for information under the RTI Act, the information shall be provided to the applicant as per the provisions of the RTI Act and any denial of the same must be in accordance with Sections 8 and 9 of the RTI Act only," he said. Gandhi said an information seeker who has filed application under the RTI Act "cannot be forced" to obtain the information as per order XII of the SC Rules.

Decriminalize bid to commit suicide: PIL in high court

May 11, 2011,

Ten lakh Indians attempt suicide every year, out of which 274 do so every day. A majority of those who decide to end their lives are in their prime, below 44 years, when they could have contributed so much to society.Citing these figures, a PIL before the Delhi high court on Wednesday sought decriminalization of attempt to suicide, which is right now a criminal offence, punishable with imprisonment.A bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justice Sanjiv Khanna then sought the government's response on what steps it had taken till now on similar recommendations made by the Law Commission of India in its 2008 report."We would like to know what is the stand of the Centre as regards the recommendation of the law commission in its 210{+t}{+h} report to repeal the law which they have termed is anachronistic," the bench told central government standing counsel Jatan Singh. However, the court made it clear it was not acceding to any of the prayers made in the PIL, like striking down of section 309 of IPC. "The government may accept or reject any recommendation of the law commission. It is not for the court to issue any direction in this regard," the bench clarified, while seeking an affidavit in this regard from the Centre by July 5.The PIL filed by an NGO Mental Health Foundation informed HC it was engaged in dealing with mental illness for several years and had come to the conclusion that factors driving people to commit suicide are economic, emotional, social and personal. "It's more a manifestation of a diseased state of mind and, therefore, it's unfair to punish such persons who had already taken a decision to take the extreme step owing to something very disturbing," the petition added, seeking the court's intervention.Interestingly, the PIL on suicide also cited the recent remarks by the Supreme Court in its landmark decision on euthanasia where the apex court made a strong pitch for scrapping section 309 of IPC.

Maintaining wife, a man's moral duty

Apr 16, 2011:

A Delhi court has ordered a taxi owner to pay Rs4,500 a month to his estranged wife, saying it is a man's moral duty to maintain his wife."It is the moral duty of the respondent (husband) to maintain the petitioner who is his wife. She is held entitled to maintenance at Rs4,500 per month from her husband from the date of this order," Metropolitan Magistrate Kiran Gupta said while also awarding Rs2,500 as litigation cost to her.The court gave its order on a plea by south Delhi resident Tarawati seeking maintenance from her husband Raj Kumar who resided at Paharganj in central Delhi area and owned a taxi.Tarawati demanded the maintenance, accusing her husband of inflicting cruelty on her and abandoning her.Married to Kumar in May, 2002, she had moved the court for maintenance in December, 2006. She demanded the maintenance saying she has no source of income to support her while her husband earned around Rs20,000 a month.She said he was also having an additional income of Rs75,000 a year from his agricultural land."Kumar had no obligation except to maintain me (wife) as his father was retired from Indian Railways and was getting a handsome pension and his mother was living with his father," she said.But as she failed to present any documentary proof for her estranged husband's income, the court, on the basis of provisions for Minimum Wages Act, assessed his income to be at least Rs9,000 a month and, accordingly, ordered him to pay Rs4,500 a month to his wife as maintenance."Tarawati is doing stitching and crafting and earns more than Rs5,000 per month. I am a daily wager and is not earning more than Rs2,000 per month," Kumar said.

Get details of Karnataka high court case listings on SMS

Here is some good news for all litigants and the legal fraternity as well. The Karnataka high court case list, giving the details of the cases listed for the next day, is now available on SMS.

Under the service, litigants and advocates will get an SMS on their cell phones if their case has been listed for hearing the next day.The facility is available for cases listed in the principal bench as well as both the Gulbarga and Dharwad circuit benches of the Karnataka high court.Litigants and advocates interested in availing the service have to register themselves at the web interface provided for the purpose on the website of the Karnataka high court: http://karnatakajudiciary.kar.nic.in

At the stage of registration, the litigants and advocates have to give their details like name, pet name mobile number, and security code among other things. If the registration is successful, the litigant and the person who registers himself or herself will get an SMS alert immediately.The SMS gives the registering person his or her user ID and password. If the credentials are not received within one hour of the registration, the user can send an SMS from the same mobile number to 9243355223 to receive the credentials with the message text reading KARHCCL

After this, the user must visit the high court website and log in using the user ID and password provided and register the details of the cases he or she wants to be receive alerts about.Provisions like changing of password as well as adding and deleting cases are available.After this, the user gets details of the cases through SMS once the daily causelist is generated.The high court has invited suggestions and feedback on the working of the SMS facility and the responses need to be sent to The registrar general, high court of Karnataka, Bangalore or through shhcourt@nic.in.

Over 44,000 trademark registry files go missing

Apr 10, 2011: Expressing shock over the sorry state of affairs in the Trademark Registry (TMR) branches where over 44,000 files were missing because of the laxity of its staff, the Delhi high court directed the department of industrial policy and promotion (DIPP) to streamline its functioning.

Justice S Muralidhar directed the under secretary of DIPP to take corrective measures as soon as possible so that missing files could be recovered.The court’s order came during hearing of a petition by Haldiram India Pvt Ltd against the government on the issue of missing trademark registration files.“A detailed enquiry conducted by a senior official of DIPP found that over 44000 files were missing, not counting the opposition files. The DIPP observed that the main reason for such a large number of files to go missing was the lack of scientific record keeping practices in TMR branches and lack of due diligence by TMR staff. Thus the Controller General of Patents, Design and Trade Marks was directed to take prompt action in all cases where malafide was suspected,” the court said.

The court said as many of the persons whose files have gone missing are still unaware of it, the procedure for recovery of files and corrective action taken should be put out on the website of TMR and given wide publicity.The court directed departmental action should be taken where negligence by their officials is seen and if malafide is established, an FIR should be lodged.

AADHAAR.

The brand name and the new logo of the ‘Unique Identification Number (UID)’, namely the ‘AADHAAR’ is the current hot topic in India. According to this number, every resident in India would be issued a unique number called as the AADHAAR.

FOR DETAILS CLICK THE LINK BELOW

<<< AADHAAR >>>

‘My Lords’ in High Court fine with ‘Sir’

Apr 09, 2011, A day after Punjab and Haryana High Court Bar association unanimously passed the resolution to start addressing the judges as “Sirs” instead of “My Lords” — “the symbol of slavery of the British Rule and colonial legacy” — the courtrooms witnessed some light moments with some judges reminding the lawyers the new “rules”. “I will dismiss your case and refer your name to the High court Bar Association for action if you address me as ‘My Lord’”, a judge smilingly interrupted as the lawyer rose to say “My Lordship”.Another judge referring to allegations that judges misbehave with lawyers, said: “You (lawyers) will be accused of violating your own resolution if you do not address us as ‘Sir’”.

A few judges, who welcomed the new resolution, asked the lawyers not to shy away from addressing them as ‘Sir’.“The essence and mandate of the resolution is to abandon words like ‘My Lord’ and ‘Your Lordship’ as forms of addressing the bench. It is open to lawyers not to use any alternative expression of addressing the bench and simply to make their submissions,” said advocate Anupam Gupta, who used no form of addressing the Bench.“‘Sir’ is a very respectful word. I enjoyed addressing the judges as ‘Sir’ than ‘My Lord’ and will stick to the same,” said lawyer H C Arora. Those who addressed Judges as “My Lord” said that shifting to “Sir” will take time as using of “My Lord” has become a habit.“It is just that using of My Lord has become an integral part of our arguments. It is more a habit and acts as a helping verb to foster the smooth flow of our contentions,” said advocate Rishabh Kapoor.When asked as to what action shall be taken against the lawyers who do not adhere to the resolution, Bar president K S Dhaliwal said: “Since it is a very old practice, abandoning these form of addressing will take time. We will give our brother lawyers a month’s time and then we will assess as to whether the lawyers are obeying the resolution.”