Courts cannot be forced to explain their judgments

Can a judge be asked under the Right to Information (RTI) Act why he or she came to a particular conclusion in a judgment? The Supreme Court has answered “no” in its finding in the case of Khanapuram Gandaiah v Administrative Officer & Ors. The court heard a petition by Gandaiah, a 76-year-old agriculturist from Andhra Pradesh, who alleged “judicial dishonesty” against a principal district judge who in 2006 had ordered an injunction against him in a property dispute concerning eight acres of land.

Gandaiah had criticized the district judge’s order against him as “patently erroneous”, and had filed an RTI application seeking an explanation as to how the judge could have relied on what what Gandaiah alleged to have been fabricated documents in arriving at his decision. The writ petition was dismissed by the high court of Andhra Pradesh because the information Gandaiah sought could not be obtained under the RTI Act, and also because judicial officers are protected by the Judicial Officers’ Protection Act, 1850. Gandaiah then challenged the dismissal of his writ petition before the Supreme Court.

The update of court judgments is compiled by Bhasin & Co, Advocates, a corporate law firm based in New Delhi. The authors can be contacted at lbhasin@bhasinco.in or lbhasin@gmail.com. Readers should not act on the basis of this information without seeking professional legal advice.