Kashmir Life: Srinagar: Monday,
December 05, 2016.
Readers will
remember my dispatch from September this year, describing my efforts to find
out details about the sale and the efficacy of anti-riot weapons- particularly
pellets guns which have caused severe injuries to hundreds of youth in various
parts of Jammu and Kashmir.
I had sought
information under The Right to Information Act, 2005 (RTI Act) about the
quantum and price of sale of pellet guns and cartridges as well reports of any
studies conducted about the efficacy of such weapons and ammunition on human
beings.
The RTI
application originally sent to the Ordnance Factory Board Kolkata (OFB), landed
up with the Khadki Ordnance Factory (OFK).
Rejecting the
RTI application, the Central Public Information Officer (CPIO), OFK, had
invoked the ground of “defence interest of the State” under Section 8(1)(a) and
also claimed that the information was in the nature of commercial confidence,
trade secret and / or intellectual property and disclosure would adversely
affect the competitive position of a third party.
So I filed a
first appeal against this order with the First Appellate Authority (FAA), OFK.
Now the FAA,
OFK has, in his order, clearly stated that:
1.a) they do not hold reports of any studies
regarding the efficacy of anti-riot weapons such as pellet cartridges; and
2.b) they do not manufacture anti-riot weapons
such as pellet guns but only the ammunition used with it.
In response
to the FAA’s direction to disclose specifications of the pellet cartridges, the
CPIO has claimed that disclosure of the sale price and the quantum of sale of
pellet cartridges is not in the public interest. The CPIO merely printed out
the webpages from the OFB’s website regarding the specifications of the pellet
cartridges and sent them to me after stamping them with a seal saying “Document
issued under the RTI Act”.
What is
problematic with the FAA’s order?
The FAA,
OFK’s order is problematic in many ways:
1)
if the Khadki Ordnance Factory (OFK) is not manufacturing
the anti-riot weapon called “pellet guns, where are law enforcement agencies,
particularly the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) in J&K, buying these
pellet guns from?;
2)
if as the manufacturing entity, OFK does not have any
study reports regarding the efficacy and expected impact of pellets on human
beings, how are they authorised to manufacture such ammunition and under whose
orders? If there is no written record about how such ammunition will impact on
the intended targets, how can any standardisation of ammunition be achieved?
Readers will remember that OFK is a public sector enterprise which sells arms
and ammunition not only to the defence forces and law enforcement agencies but
also to civilians in the form of weapons for hunting, sporting and
self-defence; Such a body is claiming that they do not have studies which show
how such anti-riot ammunition will impact on human beings. This is indeed a
very strange admission; and
3)
The FAA did not bother to give any ruling on my arguments
that the sale and pricing of anti-riot weapons cannot be rejected under the RTI
Act under either Section 8(1)(a) or Section 8(1)(d).
What is
problematic with the CPIO’s response after the FAA’s order?
1)
While dealing with my RTI application initially, the CPIO
had invoked 2 exemptions (listed above) to deny data regarding the pricing and
sale of the anti-riot weapons. Realising that the claim cannot be justified, he
has now argued that such disclosure will not be in the public interest. As
pointed out above, the FAA did not give any ruling on this issue at all, which
he should have. Instead, the CPIO is now raising a ground which is not even
permitted under the RTI Act for rejecting an RTI application. According to
Section 7(1) of the RTI Act, a request for information may be rejected only for
reasons contained in the list of exemptions given in Sections 8 and 9. Nothing
in those sections authorises a public authority to reject a request for
information by holding that its disclosure not in the public interest.
If
I had asked information about the manner of deployment of the anti-riot weapons
or their distribution across the forces that are authorised to wield such
weapons, that would not have been in the public interest to disclose. Even,
then it would still have to be linked to the exemptions related to protecting
the country’s security or ensuring efficient operations of law enforcement
agencies to reject the request.
2)
The printout of the webpages that the CPIO has sent
contain specifications for the 12-bore pellet cartridge that contain rubber
pellets. According to several media reports officers engaged with the situation
in J&K have commented that they use 9-bore cartridges. Several media
reports indicate the use of metal pellets on protesters in J&K. So the
information supplied by the CPIO does not match with the information emerging
from the ground in J&K. So are the law enforcement agencies in J&K
especially, the CRPF sourcing the 9-bore pellet cartridges also from some
source other than the Khadki Ordnance Factory? The information disclosed under
RTI does not clear up this mystery either.
MHA Committee
report on riot control methods remains a secret.
Soon after
the media reported instances of numerous youngsters being injured severely by
pellet guns, resulting in extensive eye damage, many of whom were innocent
bystanders, the Government of India announced the formation of a committee to
study existing and alternative methods of crowd control. The 7-member committee
is said to have submitted its report to the Government. This report has not
been officially placed in the public domain. There is an urgent need to make
the report public. A similar report prepared in 2010 was made public by the
Delhi Police after I filed an RTI application. There is no reason why the 2016
report should not be made public, especially, when organisations like OFK are
manufacturing ammunition for riot control without knowledge of what their
impact is on the human body.
This is an
issue of immense public interest. I hope readers will also start seeking such
information from the Central and the State Governments as well as the law
enforcement agencies that are operating in J&K.