'Transparency not a threat'

Bringing the office of Chief Justice of India under the RTI regime, Supreme Court on Wednesday said increasing transparency would not threaten judicial independence and failure to bring about accountability would erode trust in the courts’ impartiality.

Writing a separate but concurring judgement, Justice D Y Chandrachud said judicial independence is “not a shield to protect wrong doing” but an instrument to secure the fulfilment of those constitutional values which an independent judiciary is tasked to achieve. “Judicial independence is hence not a carte blanche to arbitrary behaviour,” he said.

Batting for a transparent judiciary, he said, “judicial independence is not secured by the secrecy of cloistered halls. It cannot be said that increasing transparency would threaten judicial independence.”

He said that the court cannot accept the contention that merely because a judge cannot be elected out of office, their conduct and general administration was not a matter of great public interest. The disclosure of information about the conduct of judges and their administration is necessary to ensure that the broader societal goals in the administration of justice are achieved, he said.

J S Chandrachud insisted that judicial independence “cannot be used as a byword for avoiding the accountability and criticism” that accompanies transparency.

“Failure to bring about accountability reforms would erode trust in the courts’ impartiality, harming core judicial functions. Further, it also harms the broader accountability function that the judiciary is entrusted with in democratic systems including upholding citizens’ rights and sanctioning representatives of other branches when they act in contravention of the law. Transparency and the right to information are crucially linked to the rule of law itself,” he said.

Referring to the Supreme Court judgement scrapping National Judicial Appointments Commission, he said even then, the need for transparency and accountability has not been denied. It was struck down on the ground that it would adversely affect the independence of the judiciary by giving the executive a definitive say in the appointment of judges, he added.