ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court in its verdict on Monday directed the SC registrar to provide the information sought by the petitioner seeking details of the apex court’s staff under the Right to Information (RTI) Act within seven days.
The judgment, authored by Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Qazi Faez Isa, further directed the Registrar’s Office to refund the court fee paid by the petitioner, citizen Mukhtar Ahmed Ali, for this plea and on the intra-court appeal filed by him before the high court.
The court observed that The Supreme Court Rules 1980 do not grant the registrar the power to initiate litigation while the assistant attorney general of Pakistan who represented the apex court in this case is an employee of the attorney general (AG).
“The AG attends to the matters of the federal government, 6 which is part of the Executive and mandated to be separate from the Judiciary. The instant matter concerned the Supreme Court, and had no concern with the Federal Government,” noted the judgment.
“The learned AG, Mr. Mansoor Usman Awan, stated that the Act applies only to public bodies as defined in its section 2(ix) and this definition does not include the Supreme Court.
“And, though the Act is applicable to ‘court, tribunal, commission or board under the Federal law’, the Supreme Court is established under the Constitution, and not under a Federal law, nor is the Supreme Court a public body of the Federal Government to which the Act does apply.
Therefore, the Act was not applicable and the Commission did not have jurisdiction with regard to the Supreme Court. The learned AG, however, did suggest self-regulation and that the Supreme Court may make the envisaged regulations stipulating how applications seeking information should be submitted and who and how information should be provided under Article 19A.
“He further suggested that if the person authorized to provide information refused to provide it, there should be a chamber appeal against such refusal before a Judge [sic].”
The judgment further noted that: “We are in agreement with the learned AG that the Act clearly does not apply to the Supreme Court of Pakistan. Therefore, the appeal preferred by the petitioner before the Commission was not maintainable and to such extent the learned Single Judge of the High Court had correctly determined the matter”.
However, it added, that the apex court “is not excluded from the purview of Article 19A of the Constitution, and information of ‘public importance’ can be sought there under”.
“What previously may have been on a need-to-know basis Article 19A of the Constitution has transformed it to a right-to-know. The burden has shifted from those seeking information to those who want to conceal it.
“Access to information is no longer a discretion granted through occasional benevolence, but is now a fundamental right available with every Pakistani which right may be invoked under Article 19A of the Constitution,” stated the judgment.
The plea had challenged the Islamabad High Court’s decision to accept the registrar’s writ petition against the Pakistan Information Commission’s (PIC) order to make the SC’s staff information publicly accessible.
The registrar, through the attorney general for Pakistan’s office, filed a petition in the IHC against the PIC’s July 12, 2021 order.
The PIC directed the SC registrar to share with the appellant the requested information at the earliest, but not later than 20 working days of the receipt of the order.
The registrar’s petition also contended that the PIC could not pass such an order in connection with constitutional courts as its jurisdiction was confined only to those departments that were established under a statute or law.
Last Friday, the petitioner had contended that the apex court would deprive the people of their fundamental right to information if it decided to disregard the law in this connection to the extent of its applicability to the SC as well as simultaneously declared that its registrar and other staff members were its integral part.
Besides, he argued that it would also take away the people’s right to exercise the writ jurisdiction for the protection of their fundamental rights under Article 199 of the Constitution in relation to the administration of the top court.
A three-member bench led by CJP Isa had heard the plea.
