Flying At Taxpayers' Money: Supreme Court Spent Crores Of Rupees On Judges' Foreign Tours

Supreme Court judges no doubt are the most hard-working people in our country, entwined in cases and files. But according to an Economic Times report, some of the judges in the last three years have clocked some impressive flying hours.

The SC Registry has recently provided some interesting facts on the foreign tours made by several judges with their spouses from April 2013 to March 2016, in a response to an RTI query from advocate Gaurav Agrawal.

As reported by Economic Times, SC has revealed information on the following judges:

• Justice AK Sikri with his wife took seven abroad trips in between the period. Together they visited Amsterdam, Hague (Netherlands) with transit through London and Dubai (UAE), Singapore (twice), Hong Kong, Brussels with transit through Zurich, Macao (China) with transit through Hong Kong and Beijing, and Tel Aviv with transit through Zurich. In total, their air tickets cost the Supreme Court Rs 37.91 lakh.
• Present Chief Justice of India T S Thakur, with his wife, visited Colombo (Sri Lanka), Canberra (Australia) with transit through Singapore and Sydney, St Petersburg (Russia) with transit through Moscow and Dubai, Ithaca, Washington and New York (all in the US) with transit through London (UK) and Newark and Chicago (US). The air tickets cost the Supreme Court Rs 36.88 lakh.
• Justices J Chelameswar and Ranjan Gogoi have incurred the least on air tickets despite travelling with their spouses. Justice Chelameswar took one trip abroad to Kathmandu which cost the SC Rs 1.13 lakh while Justice Gogoi’s trip to Bhutan cost the top court Rs 1.46 lakh.
• Justice Madan B Lokur took the land route and travelled alone to Islamabad and Bhutan and claimed nothing but took two trips abroad with his wife to Bermuda with transit through London, and Antalya with transit through Istanbul (both in Turkey). The Supreme Court paid Rs 25.09 lakh for the air tickets.
• SC has also revealed information on Justice Anil R dave, who spent Rs 17.93 lakh; Justice JS Khehar at Rs 6.85 lakh; Justice F M I Kalifulla spending Rs 9.18 lakh and Justice S A Bobde spending Rs 4.50 lakh.

The Logical Indian is appalled by the fact that so much money have been spent by Supreme Court for foreign tours of SC judges. We urge that a regulation should be imposed regarding the spending of SC’s money.