Page:Anuradha Bhasin vs Union of India and Ors.pdf/22

 democracy, which is sworn to transparency and accountability, necessarily mandates the production of orders as it is the right of an individual to know. Moreover, fundamental rights itself connote a qualitative requirement wherein the State has to act in a responsible manner to uphold Part III of the Constitution and not to take away these rights in an implied fashion or in casual and cavalier manner.

16.Second, there is no dispute that democracy entails free flow of information. There is not only a normative expectation under the Constitution, but also a requirement under natural law, that no law should be passed in a clandestine manner. As Lon L. Fuller suggests in his celebrated article "there can be no greater legal monstrosity than a secret statute". In this regard, Jeremy Bentham spoke about open justice as the "keenest spur to exertion". In the same context, James Madison stated "a popular government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy; or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern the ignorance and a people 22