"Under the guise of seeking information under the RTI Act, the process of the court is not to be abused and information not to be misused."
The judgment was never really about shutting the door on transparency. That part gets said too loosely. Rather, it was about procedure, and about who controls access to judicial-side records when a specialised court-made mechanism already exists.
In plain terms, if a litigant or a stranger wants a Court Certified Copy, the first question is not about abstract openness. The first question is which legal route governs the request, and whether it concerns inspection, copying, or a record already in the public domain.
For a legal system that keeps talking about transparency, and for a market increasingly dependent on reliable legal services in India, that distinction is not mere technical fluff. It is the whole game.
What the Supreme Court clarified in Chief Information Commissioner v. High Court of Gujarat was narrower, more procedural, and frankly more important.
The Court held that where High Court Rules already provide a specific method for obtaining judicial records, a requester cannot casually bypass that route and invoke RTI as an alternative channel for judicial records.
That is not the same thing as saying transparency has no place. Rather, it simply means judicial records are accessed through a rule-bound process, not through a shortcut argument about statutory override every single time.
Highlights of the Court’s Ruling
The following are some of the major highlights of Chief Information Commissioner v. High Court of Gujarat:
Rule 151 of the Gujarat High Court
Rule 151 of the Gujarat High Court Rules provides that anyone seeking certified copies of documents or information from the court must file an affidavit stating the reasons for such a request.
The issue before the court was whether this provision was inconsistent with the RTI Act, 2005, particularly Section 22 thereof.
Section 22 of the RTI Act
Section 22 of the RTI Act, 2005 states that the RTI Act shall override any other law to the extent it is inconsistent with the provisions of the RTI Act, 2005.
A clause of this kind is called a non-obstante clause. The notwithstanding clause or the non-obstante clause in a statute makes the provision independent of other provisions contained in the law, even if the other provisions provide to the contrary. The purpose of a non-obstante clause was well explained in K.Parasuramaiah vs. Pokurl Lakshmamma (AIR 1965 AP 220) as:
“A non obstante clause is usually used in a provision to indicate that the provision should prevail despite anything to the contrary in the provision mentioned in such non-obstante clause. In case there is any inconsistency or a departure between the non-obstante clause and another provision, one of the objects of such a clause is to indicate that it is the non-obstante clause which would prevail over the other clause”.
No Inconsistency Between RTI and Court Rules
The Supreme Court held that there is no inconsistency between the RTI Act and the Court Rules, as the Gujarat High Court Rules require one to state the reasons for seeking such copies, through an affidavit, whereas the RTI Act requires no reasons to be provided in order to obtain or seek any information or documents.
The bench held that “Rule 151 of the Gujarat High Court Rules stipulating a third party to have access to the information/obtaining the certified copies of the documents or orders requires to file an application/affidavit stating the reasons for seeking the information, is not inconsistent with the provisions of the RTI Act; but merely lays down a different procedure as the practice or payment of fees, etc. for obtaining information. In the absence of inherent inconsistency between the provisions of the RTI Act and other law, overriding effect of RTI Act would not apply.”
The bench further argued that “A special enactment or rule cannot be held to be overridden by a later general enactment simply because the latter opens up with a non-obstante clause, unless there is clear inconsistency between the two legislations”.
Rule 151 of the Gujarat High Court Rules was upheld, which allows a third party, or anyone not a party to a case, to access certified copies of judgments, orders, and pleadings only upon an order of an officer of the court.
Registrar, Supreme Court of India v. R S Misra
The bench also agreed with the Delhi High Court's view in the Registrar, Supreme Court of India v. R S Misra (2017) 244 DLT 179, wherein it held that "once any information can be accessed through the mechanism provided under another statute, then the provisions of the RTI Act cannot be resorted to."
This view was later followed by the Karnataka High Court. The bench observed:
“We fully endorse above views of the Delhi High Court. When the High Court Rules provide for a mechanism that the information/certified copies can be obtained by filing an application/affidavit, the provisions of the RTI Act are not to be resorted.”
The bench held that the High Courts hold the information as a trustee for the litigants in order to adjudicate upon the matter and administer justice. Third parties shall not be permitted to have open and easy access to such personal information of the litigants or to information provided by the government in the proceedings, because there would be a misuse of the court process and the information to an unmanageable extent.
What Did the Court Actually Hold?
The Court did not hold that the RTI Act becomes irrelevant whenever the judiciary is involved. Rather, it held that on the judicial side, where court rules already prescribe a mechanism for copies or access, that special route must ordinarily be followed.
This is the real RTI Judiciary India issue. Basically, it is a conflict between a general information statute and a specific procedural framework governing judicial records.
The 2020 ruling, read with Registrar, Supreme Court of India v. R.S. Misra, leans towards procedural discipline rather than institutional opacity for its own sake.
It is also worth adding that the law of access is not exhausted by copying rules alone. A request for inspection is different from a request for a certified copy.
For instance, a stranger to the proceedings may sometimes seek access through an affidavit, sufficient cause, the registrar's permission, or a structured Third Party Inspection process. It depends on the court and the stage of the matter.
In fact, not every request for a Court Certified Copy stands on the same footing, and not every document in a file is equally open merely because a case exists in court. Pending records, confidential papers, and sensitive filings require sharper scrutiny than a final order or judgment already pronounced in open court.
Effect of the Order
Today, the e-Courts ecosystem provides case status, cause lists, orders, and judgments through public-facing services. Meanwhile, the eCommittee’s systems and the National Judicial Data Grid place large volumes of judicial metadata in the public domain.
The eCourts mobile application also supports QR-based access to case details. So the present debate is not simply access versus secrecy. Rather, it is about layers of access.
Essentially, public judgments, Online Court Documents, inspectable case files, and legally usable certified records all now sit in different baskets.
What Do the Rules Say?
According to the rules, litigants are entitled to receive copies of documents/judgments, etc., on filing of an application with the prescribed court fees.
Third parties shall not be given copies of the judgments and other documents without the assistant registrar’s order. Thus, the assistant registrar, who is the officer of the particular court, has the ultimate power in this regard.
The registrar, upon being satisfied of reasonable cause for seeking the information/certified copies of the documents, may allow access to such information or documents.
The Existing Digital Gap
Sometimes, a PDF visible on a portal or a judgment searchable online is helpful. Digital Court Records improve efficiency, and QR-Coded Judgments improve authenticity checks and ease retrieval in some contexts.
Still, many procedural settings demand more than visibility. Appeals, execution, mutation, compliance before departments, or formal proof may still require a Court Certified Copy issued under the applicable rules.
That is why digitisation is not a substitute for certification. Rather, it is the first layer of access, with certification remaining the legally operative layer when the forum or statute requires it.
Moreover, other adjudicatory systems have moved further in digital process design. Consumer dispute systems, for instance, have publicly highlighted virtual hearings, digital filing, and multilingual access through portals and related services. This includes the Jagriti ecosystem and NCH 2.0.
Even if one loosely refers to that reform mood as an e-Jagriti 2.0 Portal model, the real lesson is institutional. In fact, access improves when the process is standardised, searchable, and accountable.
Basically, Courts need not copy another forum wholesale. However, they can no longer pretend that physical-file logic is the only legally respectable way to handle record access.
Drawbacks of the Order
Most High Courts allow only the parties to a legal proceeding access to the case records. Some High Courts may allow third parties to access such records or documents only after being satisfied of the reason for access. On the other hand, seeking any information under RTI is void of a statement of the reason for such access. Thus, there is an obstacle to administrative discretion under the said rule.
Another concern with the judgment is that the procedure under the RTI Act is quite expeditious and simple. A person can file an RTI application by post, and the required fee can also be paid by postal order. On the other hand, the procedure laid down by the High Courts is cumbersome and time-consuming.
Today, as different branches of government strive to make their functioning more transparent and consumer- and citizen-friendly, the judiciary is lagging behind and needs a systematic overhaul of the entire process to establish a supreme model of transparency.
Uniform Principles, Uneven Rules
Unfortunately, there is no single national rulebook on judicial record access. Some courts distinguish sharply between pending and decided matters. Meanwhile, some allow inspection of decided matters more readily.
Moreover, some require affidavits or sufficient cause from strangers. In fact, some courts have enabled online e-inspection for digitised judicial files, subject to screening and confidentiality controls.
The lack of uniformity is the real story, not an unsupported claim that all courts function alike.
This is also where the transparency becomes a major issue. The problem is not that courts have rules. Of course, they must. Rather, the problem is that the rules differ too much. Also, the categories are not always clearly explained to users. Moreover, the language of discretion is often broad, and digital access is uneven across forums.
Hence, a litigant seeking a copy order, an academic seeking inspection, a journalist tracking a public-law matter, and a family member trying to trace a probate file do not encounter a coherent national framework. Rather, they encounter fragments.
That fragmentation, more than the procedure itself, frustrates access and creates avoidable opacity.
Transparency Does Not Mean Undifferentiated Access
In general, courts deal with intensely personal material. Matrimonial pleadings, juvenile records, sexual offence matters, medical records, sealed covers, witness identities, and financial disclosures do not fit into a one-note public access narrative.
The Supreme Court’s reasoning was partly animated by the concern that judicial records are held in trust for adjudication, not as an unrestricted warehouse for public extraction.
That balancing point becomes especially important in Indian practice, where litigants often confuse categories of relief. For instance, a request for copies in a civil dispute is not the same thing as proving status in a succession matter. Also, it is certainly not the same thing as asking which forum should hear a claim.
Moreover, a Legal Heir Certificate Court proceeding, for instance, raises a different procedural inquiry from a copy application. The same goes for commercial disputes, where forum questions may involve threshold issues that some practitioners loosely discuss in terms of Pecuniary Jurisdiction 2026.
Those matters are adjacent to access, but they are not access itself.
What Real Reform Would Actually Look Like
The answer is not to collapse judicial records into the RTI pipeline. Rather, it is to standardise access architecture. India needs uniform minimum norms for the following:
- Indexed copying applications
- Digital fee payment
- Reasoned refusal orders
- Auditable turnaround times
- Online application tracking
- Role-based access for advocates and parties
- Controlled-stranger access
- Searchable repositories for final orders that are already public.
There is a need for a future harmonisation project, whether it is called e-Certified Copy Rules 2026 or something less catchy. It should focus on procedure, traceability, and lawful differentiation between public, restricted, and confidential record classes.
This is where the National Judicial Data Grid becomes relevant in an indirect but important way. NJDG already demonstrates that public-facing judicial data can be organised at scale, updated, and opened for scrutiny without dissolving every procedural boundary around original records.
That is the model worth studying. Data visibility for system accountability on one side. Controlled access to operative case records, on the other hand.
In fact, courts do not lose dignity by becoming easier to navigate. Rather, they gain legitimacy. Moreover, in a justice system that often demands patience from citizens while giving very little procedural clarity in return, that shift would not be cosmetic. Actually, it would be constitutional in spirit.
The Dire Need Is Transparency!
The transparency debate here is not a binary between secrecy and openness. Rather, it is a test of whether the judiciary can build access rules that are precise, intelligible, and technologically current without erasing legitimate boundaries of privacy and process.
What citizens need is not rhetoric alone. Rather, they need a system in which public judgments are easy to find, record requests are easy to track, refusals are reasoned, and a Court Certified Copy is available.
Also, the process must be efficient, reviewable, and less nationally chaotic than it is today. That would be a better transparency story. It must be about fewer slogans and more structure.
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