New Delhi:
Medical expenses of judges and their families cannot be made public under Right to Information Act, the Supreme Court ruled today, maintaining there should be “some respect for privacy”.
“There should be some respect for privacy and if such informations are being disclosed, there will be no stopping.
“Today he is asking informations for medical expenses. Tomorrow he will ask what are the medicines purchased by the judges. When there will be a list of medicines he can make out what type of ailment the judge is suffering from. It starts like this. Where does this stop,” a bench headed by Chief Justice H L Dattu said.
The bench, also comprising justices Arun Mishra and Amitava Roy, refused to interfere with the Delhi High Court verdict dismissing a plea seeking details of medical reimbursements of Supreme Court judges, saying it had personal information and providing it would amount to invasion of their privacy.
The apex court was hearing an appeal filed by RTI activist Subhash Chandra Agarwal against the April 17 judgement of a division bench of the High Court which had upheld the decision of its single judge that information about reimbursement of medical bills of judges and their families cannot be disclosed under the transparency law.
The single judge had set aside the Central Information Commission’s (CIC) direction holding that judges have to disclose such informations.
The apex court did not agree with advocate-activist Prashant Bhushan that since citizens are entitled to know how public money is spent by other public servants, they also have a right to know how these funds are being utilised for medical treatment of judges.
