LOKPAL RULE ON DECLARATION OF ASSETS OF SPOUSES AND
DEPENDENT CONDITIONAL STAYED BY DELHI HIGH COURT.
Written
By Admin on September 11, 2014 | Thursday, September 11, 2014
HC granted conditional stay on the Lokpal rules on a
petition by the wife of a central government employee who
termed the government dictate a violation of her "fundamental
rights of equality, life, personal liberty and privacy as
flowing from Article 14 and 21 of the Constitution of India."
NEW DELHI: In Lokpal Act's first brush with
courts, the Delhi high court on Tuesday stayed one of its rules on public declaration of
assets of spouses and dependent children of government employees.
A
bench of Justices S Ravindra Bhat and Vipin Sanghi directed that
information on asset liabilities of spouses or dependent children will not be
revealed to the public by government departments. It said such information will
only be furnished to respective departments in a sealed cover.
Till
its further orders in November, the court made it clear the sealed
envelopes reaching all departments shouldn't be opened.
The
court order comes as a huge relief to harried civil servants and central
government employees forced under the Lokpal Act to file declarations of their assets
and liabilities and those of their spouses and dependent children. HC granted conditional stay on the Lokpal
rules on a petition by the wife of a central government employee who
termed the government dictate a violation of her
"fundamental rights of equality, life, personal liberty and privacy
as flowing from Article 14 and 21 of the Constitution of India."
Vinita Singla, through her lawyer Manish
Jain, questioned the government's decision to seek her assets with the
intention to display the information on its website.
"Even otherwise the
constitutional and legal rights, privileges and liberties of the Petitioner
cannot be jeopardized and/or affected, just because of the reason that the
Petitioner is married to a public servant.
"The Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act,
2013, which is inter-alia unreasonable, arbitrary, unjustified and
unconstitutional, as the same is seeking declaration in the form of
information from the public servant even for the assets of the spouse and
dependent children, which has not been generated from the income and/or
contribution of the public servant in any manner whatsoever and that the said
information is further directed to be published on the website of such ministry
or department, which will make the said information visible to the public at
large, which inter-alia may be detrimental and cause prejudice to the said
spouse and/or children of the public servant," Singla argued in HC.
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