Subhas Chandra Pattanayak
Hon’ble Chief Justice of India has termed “debatable” the issue of applicability of the Right To Information (RTI) Act to members of top judiciary.
Ever since the Supreme Court Registry had turned down an application in matter of disclosure of properties of Judges under the RTI Act, the issue has been simmering.
The Hon’ble CJ was once of the view that Judges being constitutional authorities could not be subjected to RTI act.
But again, to utter discomfort of all who love democracy and like to rely on judiciary, there are judges who in circumstances have contributed to creation of an environment that has made thinking minds in many spheres comprising even eminent jurists to say aloud that there is a necessity to make judges accountable.
The judges should place before the public very clearly the details of their properties and there should be every facility for the public to know how far their incumbency in judicial position affects their property position.
In this country the criminals are now ruling the roost and that with ever more rising ferocity. This is indicative of only the one factor that has dragged India to such sorry state and that is failure of administration of law.
So people to whom their country is more important than any other phenomenon has a right to know as to who of the public functionaries assigned with administration of laws has failed and how, where, under what circumstances and whether or not willfully.
Knowing and watching property position of judges would be helpful in this.
Plutocracy has already eclipsed our democracy and it has its tentacles in the guise of functionaries in all the organs of administration. So it is urgent for patriots to dig out as to who is a tentacle of plutocracy in which organ of our disadvantaged democracy.
Judiciary should cooperate in this and therefore should never shy at the RTI Act.