Sahara Samay: New Delhi: Monday, April 01, 2013.
The CVC has
been asked by the CIC to make public action taken into a complaint by former
Indian Airlines CMD Sunil Arora against the then Civil Aviation Minister Praful
Patel.
However,
Chief Information Commissioner Satyananda Mishra, while giving the direction,
did not allow the disclosure of original complaint filed by Arora saying it
would impede the ongoing investigation even though the CVC had not sought any such
exemption in reply as well as at the first appeal stage.
Last August,
two Lok Sabha members, Prabodh Panda (CPI) and Nishikant Dubey (BJP) had sought
a CVC probe into a May, 2005 letter of Arora to the then Cabinet Secretary B K
Chaturvedi. The MPs had sought verification and investigation into some
"grave irregularities" that allegedly took place during Patel's
tenure and raised by Arora.
In his RTI
application, activist Subhash Agrawal had sought from the CVC the details of
action taken on the letters given by the two MPs and allegations levelled by
Arora against the former aviation minister.
The
information was denied by the CVC saying it was held in fiduciary capacity and
personal in nature which are exempt from disclosure under the RTI Act. These
arguments, cited by the CVC, to withhold the letters of the MPs, were rejected
by the CIC.
Directing the
CVC to comply with its orders in 15 days, Mishra said, "We do not think
that a communication received from MPs can be classified as either a personal
information or as information held in a fiduciary capacity unless they had
marked it as confidential/personal.
"It is
presumed that the MPs while communicating with the CVC would raise issues only
in larger public interest. Therefore, while the original complaint made by the
former Indian Airlines chief may not be disclosed at this stage in view of the
pending investigation into the matter, the communication received from the MPs,
if any, and the consequent
action taken should be disclosed."
He also
directed the CVC that any communication received from the Cabinet Secretariat,
which had received the complaint from Arora, should be disclosed to Agrawal.
The Chief
Information Commissioner advised the CVC to deal with each query in the RTI
application separately and not give an omnibus reply invoking certain exemption
provisions.
Panda and
Dubey had claimed that "haste" was shown in signing of a contract for
purchase of aircraft between Air India and US aircraft manufacturer Boeing.
The MPs said
that seat configuration of planes under order from Boeing was "changed at
the intervention of the minister when negotiations were under process".
Air India also converted the option of buying 15 more aircraft to firm orders,
they had claimed in the complaint.
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