The Supreme Court administration informed the Delhi High Court that it is neither aware of any complaint against the former Acting Chief Justice of Madras High Court relating to allegations of corruption or improper conduct, nor has it or the Chief Justice of India (CJI) received any such complaint.
This statement was given by the Supreme Court administration before Justice Purushendra Kumar Kaurav, who was hearing a petition filed against not providing the desired information under the Right to Information (RTI) Act. Justice Kaurav only asked the lawyer appearing for the Supreme Court administration whether he had received any complaint against the former judge or not.
The lawyer replied, ‘Our answer is that the information is not maintained in the format in which it has been sought. We do not keep this information in the register of the Supreme Court. The court observed that ‘no clear answer has been received’, so the parties were asked to file their written replies and the matter was listed for hearing on April 1.
An application under the Right to Information Act was filed before the Supreme Court’s Central Public Information Officer (CPIO) by petitioner Saurabh Das seeking information as to ‘whether the Chief Justice of India, the Collegium and/or the Supreme Court have received any complaint by letter, representation or other means relating to allegations of corruption and/or any improper conduct at any time during the tenure of (former Acting Chief Justice of Madras High Court) Raja.’
In his RTI application, Das had sought information about the total number of such complaints along with the action taken on them. In his petition it was told that in the reply of CPIO it has been said that the information is not maintained in the manner as requested.
It has been argued in the petition that the refusal to provide the information was erroneous, as the RTI application asked only a ‘yes or no’ question, which did not require the disclosure or maintenance of such information in any particular format.
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