SC lists its own appeal before the Constitution bench against order that holds CJI as public authority

The Supreme Court has included in the list of cases to be heard by a Constitution bench its own appeal against a Delhi High Court judgment that holds the Supreme Court and the Chief Justice of India as "public authorities" under the Right to Information Act.

The Delhi High Court bench comprising the then Chief Justice A P Shah, Justice Vikramjeet Sen and Justice S Muralidhar upheld that the SC and CJI have a statutory duty to furnish information sought by citizens about the functioning and administration of the SC.

Filed in 2010, the appeals were referred to a Constitution bench only in August 2016 by a three-Judge bench headed by Justice Ranjan Gogoi.

Also referred were questions formulated by a bench of Justice B Sudershan Reddy and Justice SS Nijjar such as: whether independence of judiciary demands prohibition of furnishing of information sought, whether information sought amounts to interference in the judiciary’s functioning, etc.