The Judgment of the Supreme Court in Peoples’ Union for Civil Liberties v. Union of India 2004 is related to which of the following ?

Correct — C, Right to Information. The People's Union for Civil Liberties litigation before the Supreme Court is the line of cases that built the voter's right to know into Article 19(1)(a). The Court had already held, in the Association for Democratic Reforms matter, that a voter is entitled to know a candidate's assets, liabilities, educational qualifications and criminal antecedents. When Parliament responded by inserting section 33B into the Representation of the People Act to bar any disclosure beyond what that Act itself required, PUCL challenged the insertion and the Court struck it down, holding that the right to information about those who seek elected office is part of the freedom of speech and expression and cannot be taken away by ordinary legislation. That is why the item is keyed to the right to information and not to shelter, custodial violence or a speedy trial.

• (a)Right to Shelter — The right to shelter was read into Article 21 through the pavement-dwellers and housing cases, not through this litigation.
• (b)Right against Custodial violence — Protection against custodial violence and the arrest guidelines belong to a different line of cases, most famously the D.K. Basu directions.
• (d)Right to Speedy trial — The right to a speedy trial was developed in the undertrial-prisoner cases beginning with Hussainara Khatoon, again a separate line.

The right to information reached Indian law twice over. As a statutory right it arrived with the Right to Information Act, 2005. As a constitutional right it arrived much earlier and by judicial construction, through a series of decisions holding that free speech under Article 19(1)(a) is meaningless without access to the facts a citizen needs in order to speak and to vote. The electoral-disclosure cases are the sharpest expression of that idea, because they applied it against Parliament itself.

One caution about the citation. The judgment that struck down section 33B is normally reported as a 2003 decision, while the paper dates the matter to 2004, and the name People's Union for Civil Liberties attaches to a long list of unrelated Supreme Court matters — telephone tapping and privacy in the late 1990s, the right-to-food proceedings, and a challenge to anti-terror legislation among them. When a stem names a repeat litigant, read the four options for subject matter rather than trying to match the year, because the year is the least reliable part of such a stem. Here only one option belongs to the disclosure line of cases at all.

• The Supreme Court has read a right to information into the freedom of speech and expression under Article 19(1)(a).
• The electoral-disclosure line of cases requires candidates to file affidavits on assets, liabilities, educational qualifications and criminal antecedents.
• Section 33B of the Representation of the People Act, inserted to limit those disclosures, was struck down by the Supreme Court.
• The statutory right came separately, through the Right to Information Act, 2005, which repealed the Freedom of Information Act, 2002.
• People's Union for Civil Liberties is a civil-liberties organisation whose name appears on several unrelated landmark cases, so the subject matter rather than the party name identifies a judgment.

• Trying to place a case by its year when the same litigant appears in several unrelated matters.
• Assuming the right to information began with the 2005 Act; the constitutional right is older.
• Confusing the disclosure cases with the cases on the secrecy of the ballot, which pull in the opposite direction.

As a case-name recall item, but answerable by matching the litigant's known field of work to the only option that concerns disclosure.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The right to information has been read by the Supreme Court into which fundamental right?

  • (a)Article 14
  • (b)Article 19(1)(a)
  • (c)Article 25
  • (d)Article 32

  Answer(b) Article 19(1)(a) — free speech is held to include the right to receive information.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  A candidate contesting an election to Parliament or a State legislature must file an affidavit disclosing

  • (a)only assets and liabilities
  • (b)only criminal antecedents
  • (c)assets, liabilities, educational qualifications and criminal antecedents
  • (d)nothing beyond the nomination form

  Answer(c) assets, liabilities, educational qualifications and criminal antecedents — the disclosure the Supreme Court held a voter is entitled to.