UNINFORMED OPINION IS OF NO USE


Mukesh Devrari

Supreme Court Judge A. K. Patnaik said, “Freedom of speech and expression is incomplete without the right to information act as uninformed opinion has no meaning. It is of no use. People must have access to information so that they could have an informed opinion on issues. Supreme Court of India gives paramount importance to personal liberty and freedom of speech and expression. It vigorously guards these rights against state’s encroachment”. He was delivering a lecture on Right to Information Act (2005) in the CUJ (Central University of Jharkhand) on 12 April 2014.

Justice Patnaik described in detail the rationale behind introducing RTI act and procedure of using it. He also highlighted the grounds on which information can be denied. It includes anything which harms sovereignty and integrity of India, forbidden to be published by court of law, considered as a breach of parliament or state legislatures, fiduciary relations, information received from foreign governments etc. He also said, “The extreme position of RTI activists on the applicability of act is not appropriate. It requires balancing and tweaking.”

Responding to a question raised by the former registrar of CUJ A. K. Sharma about the excessive filing of RTI applications by a particular applicant Justice Patnaik said, “University can provide maximum information through its online portal, it will reduce RTI application as information will be already available for everyone. If the work is being done honestly, then there should be no problem in answering the queries. Truth always prevails.” He received applause from the audience consisting of mainly students from diverse fields of study.  

Responding to another query posed by Rahul Chaturvedi, Assistant Professor in Centre for English Literature on the definition of ‘public authority’ Justice Patnaik said, “The definition of public authority is not final yet. SC may include the many other institutions and organization within the purview of RTI act by including them in the preview of public authority. This is not a settled question of law yet. It depends on future litigation.”

In the middle of his lecture, Justice Patnaik also informed the audience that he is writing a landmark judgment on the right of every primary school student to have access to education in his or her mother tongue. This landmark decision is about to come, but the entire bench should agree with him, because this case is being considered by a bench consisting of more than one judge.”  

Comment  

Supreme Court judges rarely speak on a public forum. Occasionally judges attend academic seminars and answer the queries and therefore express their understanding on certain issues. In the seminar, Justice Patnaik mentioned that RTI act is authored by Arvind Kejriwal, Prashant Bhushan and Aruna Roy.

He dismissed the extreme position of RTI activists and their demand to ask for complete transparency in the functioning of government as unviable. He suggested a middle way. According to Justice Patnaik, “courts cannot be swayed by the one-sided arguments of RTI activists like Prashant Bhusan.”

Justice Patnaik also implicitly suggested that RTI Act may lose its potency to extract every kind of information from public authorities as it is excessively being used for reasons bereft of honest purpose and intention and seeking irrelevant details.

end. 

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