Privileges of Legislature be codified: Justice Verma

Hyderabad, Sep 16 (UNI) Advocating codification of privileges of Parliament and State Legislatures, former Chief Justice of India J S Verma today opined it was not correct to exempt file notings from the purview of the Right to Information Act, 2005.

One of the grey areas was non-codification of privileges of Parliament and State Legislatures, he said while delivering the Golden Jubilee Commemoration lecture of the Andhra Pradesh High Court.

The experience gained on working of the constitution was sufficient to guide the process of codification of legislative privileges, he said.

''There should not be any room for clash of egos among the organs created by the Constitution. The constitution had empowered the Judiciary with interpretation of the Constitution but this does not mean that Judiciary was supreme,'' Justice Verma added.

''Except for reasonable restrictions imposed under article 19 (2) of the Constitution, no other restriction could be imposed,'' he said, adding ''whether the government likes it or not, all information, including file notings should be provided to people when asked for.'' UNI SM JJ AK RK1640