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."
Lokpal rule on declaration of assets of babus’ wives stayed
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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