No information maintained in SC on complaint against former Madras HC judge: Delhi HC told

New Delhi, Jan 14 (PTI) The Supreme Court administration on Wednesday told the Delhi High Court that it maintained no information on any complaints received by it or the Chief Justice of India alleging corruption or improper conduct of a former Madras High Court acting chief justice.

The statement was made before Justice Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav, who was hearing a petition against the denial of such information under the Right to Information (RTI) Act.

Justice Kaurav asked the counsel for the top court's administration to simply state whether it had received any complaint against the former judge or not.

"Our reply is that information is not maintained in the manner sought. We don't maintain this information in the registry of the Supreme Court," the lawyer responded.

Observing that a "clear answer was not forthcoming", the court asked the parties to file their written submissions and listed the case for hearing on April 1.

In the RTI application filed on April 25, 2023 before the top court's CPIO, petitioner Saurav Das had sought to know "whether any complaints, whether through letter representation or otherwise, about either allegation of corruption and/or any improper conduct has been received by the Chief Justice of India, collegium, and/or the Supreme Court of India till date for anytime of (former acting chief justice of Madras High Court T) Raja's tenure".

In his RTI plea, Das had also sought the total number of any such complaints as well as the action taken on them.

His petition informed that the reply of the CPIO stated that the "information is not maintained in the manner as sought for".

The petition has argued that the denial of information was erroneous because the RTI application merely posed a "yes or no" question which did not require disclosure or maintenance of such information in any particular format.

It further said it never was the case of the CPIO that the information would violate the privacy of any third party and the CIC erred in creating a new ground while dealing with the second appeal.

Stating that there was overwhelming public interest in ensuring accountability of the judiciary, the petitioner therefore prayed for a direction to the CPIO to provide the information sought by the applicant.

Justice Raja was appointed the acting chief justice of Madras High Court on September 22, 2022. He demitted office on May 23, 2023. The Supreme Court collegium recommended his transfer to the Rajasthan High Court in November 2022. The recommendation was reiterated in April 2023. PTI ADS ZMN