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RTI trumps Official Secrets Act, says SC
Why in news?
- An all-out effort by the government to claim privilege and push the Rafale jets’ pricing details back into the dark zone was met with a stoic counter from Justice K.M. Joseph in the Supreme Court
More in news
- Government's argument to claim privilege:(1) Section 22: Attorney-General K.K. Venugopal read out Section 22 of the RTI Act, which declared the RTI to have an “overriding effect” over OSA.(2) Section 24: which mandates even security and intelligence organisations to disclose information on corruption and human rights violations.(3) Section 8(2): which compels the government to disclose information “if public interest in disclosure outweighs the harm to protected interests”.(4) Mr. Venugopal defended that security of the state, “supercedes everything else”.(5) Mr. Venugopal cited that according to Section 123 of the Evidence Act. "State documents cannot be published without explicit permission,”
- Argument against previlage:(1) Justice Joseph said the Parliament has passed the RTI Act in 2005 and brought about a complete revolution, a complete change. Let us not go back to what it was.(2) Justice S.K. Kaul asked Mr. Venugopal the logic behind claiming privilege now when the documents were already in the public domain.(3) Prashant Bhushan argued that there is a lot of Supreme Court judgments which hold that public interest trumps over privilege.
Source
The hindu