The PIL by three organisations, which was admitted by a three-judge bench comprising Justice S P Bharucha, Justice A P Misra and Justice D P Mohapatra, also challenged Section 5 of the Official Secrets Act which prohibits a Government official from divulging confidential information.

The petitioners were the Centre for Public Interest Litigation, National Campaign for the People's Right to Information and Manushi. Section 5 which prohibits public officials from disclosing any information which has come to them in their official capacity, was clearly violative of Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution guaranteeing Right to Information, the petitioners contended.

The petitioners said pursuant to the publicannouncement of Jethmalani on opening his Ministry files to the public, a request was made for the inspection of two files, one relating to the appointment of a consultant to the multi-crore metro-rail project in the capital and the other relating to the office memorandum on opening files to the public.

The petitioners said that Jethamalani on October 10 ``directed his ministry to issue an office memorandum which would give all citizens the right to inspect any file of the Ministry and obtain photocopies of the files on payment of a certain prescribed nominal fee''.

``It appears that on October 16, the Cabinet Secretary issued an order purportedly with the approval of the Prime Minister, directing the Ministry of Urban Affairs not to give effect to the office memorandum of Jethmalani,'' they alleged.

They said the action of the respondents -- Cabinet Secretary and the Urban Affairs Ministry--in not giving the petitioners access to the two files, was violative of the petitioners' Right to Information.The bench admitted the petition, after hearing brief arguments on behalf of the petitioners by senior advocate Shanti Bhusan.