New Delhi, Nov 25 (IANS) The Central Information Commission (CIC) has asked the Supreme Court to reveal the name of the minister who tried to influence the decision of Madras High Court judge R. Reghupati earlier this year.
The decision came on a Right to Information (RTI) application filed by activist Subhash Chandra Agrawal who had asked for complete correspondence between Chief Justice of India K.G. Balakrishnan and the Madras High Court judge R. Reghupati involving the issue of a union minister approaching the latter through a lawyer to influence his judicial decisions.

Agrawal had also asked the name of the union minister who tried to influence Reghupati and the name of the advocate who approached Reghupati on behalf of the minister.

However, the apex court official Rajpal Arora denied the information sought, stating that the information was “neither maintained nor available”.

Agrawal then approached the first appellate authority which also denied him the information. He then filed an appeal with the CIC.

“…we are not convinced that the disclosure of information sought by appellant S.C. Agrawal would in any way infringe on the constitutional stature of justices of the high court or indeed in any way diminish the exalted status that we readily concede is granted to him in a democracy such as ours,” said Chief Information Commissioner Wajahat Habibullah in his order.

“The implication in this appeal is that, in fact, there has been an attempt to diminish that exalted status by unseemly pressure and the information sought is a means to expose such an unworthy attempt, if any,” Habibullah noted.

The information will now be provided to Agrawal within 15 working days of the date of receipt of this decision.