Defence Estate denies info even after HC order

Times of India: Meerut: Tuesday, 20 January 2015.

M A Zafar is yet to have a look at his answer sheets of Defense Estate Services examination 2011. Zafar, a PRO at Cantt Board office, was one of the 54 candidates who sat for the exam in 2011. Six of them cleared the paper, with Zafar scoring the highest marks.

However, all the six were failed after a reevaluation of their answer sheets. Zafar then filed a RTI, seeking copies of answer sheets of all the exams conducted within five weeks, but his plea was turned down by Directorate General, Defence Estate, Delhi Cantt, citing "confidential norms".

"The central information commission ordered the information officer DG, DEO, on April 23 to supply the copies of answer sheets of all the papers within five weeks, but it didn't happen," said Zafar. He then approached the Delhi High Court on the issue and the HC on September 24, 2014 passed an order in his favour and gave four weeks to the DG to provide the requested information to the petitioner.

When Zafar didn't get the desired information after the HC deadline, he filed a contempt petition and the court issued a show cause notice to the respondents on December 12, 2014. It also gave a time period of four weeks till January 14, 2015 to file a reply but nothing has come yet.

Zafar has already written a letter to Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar regarding the lackadaisical attitude of the officials. "Unfortunately, the HC order has been thrown in the dustbin deliberately by your officers of the DG, DEO. It is regretted that a high official of government of India is making a mockery of the HC and RTI. It shows that there was a big conspiracy in declaring deliberately all the candidates as failed. There is suspicion that some of the desired candidates couldn't be selected therefore, to accommodate them, a game of fresh examination had been designed," Zafar wrote.