SC asked to provide details of vehicles with tinted glass

The Supreme Court, which has banned dark films for vehicles in India, has been directed to submit details of its own cars originally fitted with tinted glass or coated with tinted film.

The Supreme Court, which has banned dark films for vehicles in India, has been directed to submit details of its own cars originally fitted with tinted glass or coated with tinted film.

HT Image

The Central Information Commission (CIC) has directed Apex court officials to provide the information, after they refused to divulge details under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, along with details of cars that still having tinted glass and those from which films have been removed.

Appellant Jagjit Singh, an RTI activist, said it was the Supreme Court that had banned all vehicles in India from having dark films. “Therefore I was interested in knowing if its own vehicles were following this direction,” he said

As reported by HT on December 29, 2012, Singh had asked the Supreme Court authorities several questions which included the number of government vehicles in use by the apex court, its make, average monthly fuel consumption of each vehicle, copies of pollution under check certificates since January, how many vehicles had dark films or tinted glasses and who uses which vehicle.

However, Singh was provided only partial information by the Apex court after which he approached the CIC. Satyanand Mishra, the chief information commissioner, said leaving aside specific item/s of information, we do not see any reason why the remaining information should not be disclosed.

Mishra, during a hearing last week, however, upheld a submission by the Supreme Court authorities that information such as the number of cars being used by the chief justice of India and other judges need not be brought in public domain.

He then directed the Supreme Court officials to provide within 15 days information about the cars in use in the Supreme Court at the time of filing of RTI application, the details of those cars, which had been originally fitted with tinted glasses or in which the glasses had been coated with films, including the cost incurred on such conversions; the list of cars from which the tinted glass had been removed.