Firstpost: New Delhi: Friday,
May 24, 2013.
Sashastra
Seema Bal has refused to provide information on a RTI applicant’s query
regarding sexual harassment charges levelled against its officials by wrongly
claiming exemption under the Right to Information Act.
Sukhbir, a
resident of Haryana’s Patoudi village, had sought information related to sexual
harassment charges brought against Commandant, Deputy Inspector General and
Inspector General-level officials of the paramilitary force.
“It is
intimated that under Section 24 of Right to Information Act, 2005, SSB is
exempted from the provision of said Act except in the cases pertaining to
corruption, human rights violation,” the force said in its reply to the RTI
query.
The Section
bars disclosure of information, other than human rights violation and
corruption, by security and intelligence organisations including SSB.
The Central
Information Commission, however, had in many cases held that sexual harassment
amounts to human rights violation.
“We have also
on earlier occasion held that overt gender discrimination amounts to violation
of human rights,” the Commission had said while hearing a case filed by ex-RAW
official Nisha Priya Bhatia.
The 5,000
personnel-strong SSB guards the country’s frontiers along Nepal and Bhutan.
Agencies
including Intelligence Bureau, Research and Analysis Wing, Central Economic
Intelligence Bureau, Enforcement Directorate and Narcotics Control Bureau among
others are also exempted to give information under the transparency law.
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