INDIAN JUDICIARY & RIGHT TO INFORMATION

A. AGHAV¹*
¹Savitribai Phule Pune University, Pune - 411 007, MS, India.
* Corresponding Author : aghav3@gmail.com

Received : 15-06-2015     Accepted : 23-07-2015     Published : 25-07-2015
Volume : 4     Issue : 1       Pages : 74 - 78
Int J Humanit Soc Sci 4.1 (2015):74-78

Keywords : democracy, right to information, good governance, transparency, accountability and Indian Judiciary
Academic Editor : Dattaraj Patwe, Dr Saleem M. Shaikh , Salam Abdus, Sengupta Piyali, Mukherjee Basupurna, Ananya R. Bibave
Conflict of Interest : None declared

Indian bureaucracy use to work in secrecy as followed in British period, which resulted in to corruption and misuse of power. India has also changed its nature of state from being a laissez faire sate to social welfare state, wherein state has covered every aspect of public life. In this state activism state assumed more and more powers to regulate society, which led to corruption, misuse and abuse of statutory and administrative powers. Even though India is one of the world’s largest democracy, it suffers from hurdles like poverty, corruption, population, criminalization of politics and weaker administration and legal system. In order to become a democratic country in real sense it needs to overcome these hurdles. One of the key adjuncts for this is; right to information. In order to become democratic country in real sense, there should be a participation of the people in decision making process of the government & for effective participation; people should have information or knowledge about the functioning of the Government. The basic postulate of democracy is good governance which is based on transparency & accountability. In order to become real and participatory democracy Indian Parliament passed a Right to information Act, 2005 which came in to force on 12th October 2005. However the credit for initiatives for the open and good governance goes to Judiciary and the movements led by civil societies &MKSS. Supreme Court of India through its several decisions given from time to time has recognized the right to information. However in real practice judiciary often fail to follow its own canon, which is called as the Law of the Land. The Right to Information Act provides for the definition of Public authorities under Sec.2 (h), which can be clearly interpreted to include judiciary. It should follow the principles of transparency, accountability as declared by it for more progressive, participatory democracy. Judiciary should be more accountable and transparent than any other organ of the State, but in recent times even the Indian judiciary has been involved in controversy pertaining to disclosure of information and corruption. It is said that this Right is the child of Indian Judiciary but judiciary failed to follow its own preaching. This is a small study gauging the accountability and transparency of judiciary and applicability of the Right to Information Act, 2005 to Indian Judiciary.