Ahmedabad
Mirror: Ahmedabad: Tuesday, 18 November 2014.
The records
of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru's hanging are unlikely to be made
public soon as Tihar prison has decided to challenge before the Delhi High
Court the Central Information Commission (CIC) order to disclose the documents.
Information Commissioner Sridhar Acharyulu had directed the Tihar authorities
to make public specific records related to the execution of Guru on September
26. The Commissioner had given authorities 10 days to comply with the order.
According to
the legal position, Tihar authorities should have either procured a stay from
the HC through a writ petition or provided the information. The CIC had directed
Tihar to make Guru's death warrant public along with copies of communication
sent to his family informing them of the date of execution. The communication
in this regard has been sent to Aligarh-based RTI applicant Paras Nath Singh by
Director General of Prisons at Tihar.
"It is
informed that the Prison Department is going to file an appeal before the High
Court of Delhi against the decision of CIC," Sunil Kumar, Law Officer
(Prisons) said. Convicted for his role in the December 2001 terrorist attack on
Parliament, 34-year-old Guru was hanged on February 9, 2013. In his order,
Acharyulu had said any RTI application (in this case seeking details of Guru'
execution) "cannot be rejected lock, stock and barrel without application
of mind and citing exemption under Section 8 without justifying the
defence".
The
Commission directed Tihar authorities to provide a certified copy of the death
warrant for Guru's execution to the RTI applicant. The case relates to Singh's
application seeking death warrant and video recording of Guru's execution,
among other details. Tihar authorities had refused to provide any information,
saying it would endanger national security.
"The
Commission finds this rejection of RTI application in toto is without any
application of mind and without examining each and every point, separating the
information that can be given from one that cannot be given using doctrine of
severability provided under section 10," Acharyulu had said. "They
(Tihar) cannot stay the operation of CIC order which is binding on them, unless
they get an HC stay. It has been more than a month that they neither went to
the HC nor complied with the CIC order," Singh said.
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