Hampers "Open Justice": Supreme Court's Strong Remarks On Sealed Cover

Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, known by now to be a strong critic of "sealed cover" submissions, made the reasons for his objections clear on Wednesday. During the hearing of a case involving the Central ban on a news channel, the top court slammed the government for filing its views under "sealed cover", where the contents cannot be made public.

The Centre's contention that the matter involved national security was shredded by the court, which said, "National security claims cannot be made on the basis of thin air... There is nothing to show terrorist links".

"There cannot be a blanket immunity to the government for disclosure of information to the other parties in a proceeding before the court... All investigation reports cannot be termed secret as these affect the rights and liberty of the citizens," said the bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and Justice Hima Kohli.

Even otherwise, "While public interest immunity claims conceivably impact the principles of natural justice, sealed cover proceedings infringe the principles natural justice and open justice," the judges said.

"Sealed cover proceedings cannot be adopted to avoid the harm caused by public immunity proceedings. We are of the opinion that public immunity proceedings are a less restrictive means to safeguard public interest," the court said.

The judges also said the power of the courts to accept sealed cover submissions when weighed against assessing public interest immunity claims is "rather unguided and ad-hoc".

The court, however, said while parts of a government submission can be redacted, "the redacted material from the reasoned order shall be preserved in the court records which may be accessed by the courts in the future, if the need arises".

The top court had made its position on sealed cover in March, refusing to accept the Centre's sealed cover note on payment of One Rank-One Pension arrears to ex-service personnel.

"We want to put an end to this sealed cover procedure which is being followed by the Supreme Court because the high courts will follow it and this is fundamentally contrary to the basic principle of fair process in a court of law," the bench had said.

While hearing a batch of PILs related to the Adani-Hindenburg issue, the top court had told Solicitor General Tushar Mehta that "if we accept the set of suggestions from you in a sealed cover that means the other side has not seen them. Even if we don't accept your suggestion, they will not know which of your suggestions we have accepted and which we have not. Then there may be an impression that well, this is a government appointed committee which the Supreme Court has accepted."