In a rare instance, the Supreme Court on Tuesday recalled its earlier order saying it had committed a “mistake of law” by directing that only sitting or retired high court chief justices or an apex court judge could head the central and state information commissions.
“As the judgement under review suffers from mistake of law, we allow the review petitions, recall the directions and declarations in the judgement under review... Legislature confers discretion on the rule making authority to make rules. In the judgement under review, therefore, this court made a patent error in directing the rule making authority to make rules within a period of six months,” the apex court said and recalled the verdict which was written by Justice Swatanter Kumar, who has since retired.
A bench of justices A.K. Patnaik and A.K. Sikri withdrew its order of September 13 last year in which a slew of directions were passed pertaining to appointment of information commissioners. “It was mistake of law. We recall the directions,” the bench said. Tuesday’s order came on a petition filed by the Centre seeking review of its last year’s order. In its review plea, the Centre had said it is against the provisions of the Right to Information Act.
The apex court, in its judgement last year, had said that like other quasi judicial bodies, people from judicial background be also appointed as members of the central and state information commissions and this should be done after consulting the CJI and chief justices of the respective high courts. The court had directed the government to amend RTI Act for it. “Chief Information Commissioner at the Centre or state level shall only be a person who is or has been a chief justice of the high court or a judge of the Supreme Court of India,” the court had said. The bench had passed the order on a PIL challenging Section 12 and 15 of the Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005, enumerating the qualifications needed for the appointment of members of the commissions. The bench had, however, refused to quash the sections but asked the government to modify them.
In Tuesday’s order, the bench said that Information Commissions have many times passed orders which are beyond the provisions of the transparency act.