The Supreme Court today held that certified copies of court documents can be obtained through mechanisms provided under the high court rules and not the provisions of the Right To Information Act.

The Supreme Court bench comprised Justices R Banumathi, AS Bopanna, and Hrishikesh Roy.

LiveLaw reports that the Chief Information Commission and the Gujarat Information Commission "had challenged a Gujarat High Court order which had held that the high court rules governing issuance of certified copy of the documents would prevail over the Right to Information Act provisions."

The bench said: "When there is an effective machinery for having access to the information or obtaining certified copies which, in our view, is a very simple procedure i.e. filing of an application/affidavit with requisite court fee and stating the reasons for which the certified copies are required, we do not find any justification for invoking Section 11 of the RTI Act and adopt a cumbersome procedure. This would involve wastage of both time and fiscal resources which the preamble of the RTI Act itself intends to avoid."

It concluded: "The information to be accessed/certified copies on the judicial side to be obtained through the mechanism provided under the High Court Rules, the provisions of the RTI Act shall not be resorted to."