The former Chief Justice of India, K.G. Balakrishnan, who is currently the chairman of the National Human Rights Commission has objected to disclosing his income in the past five years as sought by an applicant under the Right to Information Act.
Following his objection, the Income Tax Department has rejected the application made by T. Balachandran of Kochi. Dr. Balachandran had sought from the department certified copies of the income returns of Mr. Balachandran for five years from 2005. He had also wanted to know if any investigation had been conducted against Mr. Balakrishnan as regards his income.
The department referred the query to Mr. Balakrishnan and sought to know if he had any objections to revealing the information asked for. “In response to the above letter,” the department's public information officer in Kochi wrote back to Dr. Balachandran: “Former Honourable Chief Justice of India, Shri K.G. Balakrishnan, filed a letter dated 05/02/2011 objecting to disclose the above information stating that disclosure of the information sought for by Dr. T. Balachandran is one which is exempted from disclosure as per Section 8(j) of the RTI Act 2005.”
Section 8(j) states: “Information which relates to personal information the disclosure of which has no relationship to any public activity or interest, or which would cause unwarranted invasion of the privacy of the individual are completely exempted from disclosure unless the Central Public Information Officer or the State Public Information Officer or the appellate authority, as the case may be, is satisfied that the larger public interest justified the disclosure of such information.”
Since Dr. Balachandran had not mentioned ‘how the disclosure of the information would serve the larger public interest,' and considering how certain similar applications had been dealt with by the Central Information Commission, the department was rejecting the application.
D.B. Binu, president of the RTI Federation of Kerala, said that since Mr. Balakrishnan was a Supreme Court judge and CJI, he was a public servant during the period for which income details were sought.
Mr. Balakrishnan was still a public servant as he was now the head of the NHRC. Moreover, serious allegations of financial impropriety had been levelled against his close relatives. Because of all these factors, Mr. Binu contended, Mr. Balakrishnan's income details involved ‘larger public interest.'
