New Delhi, Oct 5 (IANS) The Supreme Court Monday moved the Delhi High Court to challenge its ruling that the office of the chief justice of India came within the ambit of the Right to Information (RTI) Act. The high court had also made it mandatory for apex court judges to disclose their assets.
The case is likely to be heard Tuesday.

Supreme Court officials pointed out that the apex court had two options to contest the high court’s single-judge ruling.

The first option was to challenge it before a division bench of the high court and the second was to take it up before itself (Supreme Court) through a Special Leave Petition, the officials said.

Wary of being seen as sitting in judgment over its own case, the apex court decided to adopt the normal route of contesting the ruling before a high court division bench instead of taking it up before itself.

Earlier, in a letter to Delhi resident Subhash Chandra Agrawal, on whose plea the Central Information Commission (CIC) had directed the disclosure of the apex court judges’ assets, the Supreme Court’s Additional Registrar Rajpal Arora informed him that the apex court was all set to move the high court yet again.

“An appeal against the judgment of the learned single judge (of the high court) dated Sep 2, 2009, in writ petition number 288 of 2009 has been kept ready for filing. But the appeal has not been filed since the Delhi High Court has been on vacation and the registry is closed,” Arora said in his communication to Agrawal.

Justice S. Ravindra Bhat had ruled on the RTI Act and the judges’ assest Sep 2 after the apex court’s registrar, who is the information officer under the act, approached the high court in January challenging the CIC order.

Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan has gone on record contending that his office does not fall under the purview of the act.