Former Chief Justice disagrees with SC move to be out of RTI purview

New Delhi, Jan 11 (UNI) Former Chief Justice of India J S Verma today questioned the Supreme Court's desire to be exempted from the purview of the Right to Information Act, saying the move was absurd and unexpected from 'someone' who wanted others to be above board.

Expressing surpise over the 'demand' to be excluded from the RTI purview, the noted jurist said how could someone seeking transparency from others think of keeping itself out of that bracket.

He was speaking at the 'Rai Bahadur M S Oberoi Media Awards' function this evening to felicitate journalists for exposing corruption in public life.

''In fact, it should set a higher standard of transparency for itself while seeking the same from everyone else. If we hope for some standard from someone we should first set a greater level for ourselves. There was no reason why the Supreme Court should be out of the RTI loop.'' All administrative judgements of the Supreme Court needs to be brought before public review and if they function transparently what was there to shy away from, he said adding, ''I would be happy if all my judgements are made public''.

''Personally, I feel the RTI was the foundation to press freedom because it empowered people to know what was happening in their domain.'' Unless people know how would they have a participatory role in governance -- the very basis of democracy, said Justice Verma.

''This was important to help see that everyone did his job properly, which would make it easier to root out corruption in public life.'' And the Supreme Court has to be in the forefront of all this, he added.

The award for 'excellence in exposing corruption' went to six journalists -- the Gold Award to V K George (Indian Express) and Rohit Khanna (CNN-IBN) and the Silver Award to M L N Reddy (Telgu daily 'Eenadu'), Samudra Gupta Kashyap (Indian Express), Saurabh Shukla (India Today Group) and Sidhartha Gautam (CNN-IBN).

Instituted by 'Transparency International', an NGO devoted to fighting corruption, the award announced in two categories -- print and electronic -- carries a cash prize of Rs two lakh, a medallion and citation for Gold Award winners and Rs 50,000, a medallion and citation for the Silver Awardees.

UNI