Economic
Times: New Delhi: Monday, 09 March 2015.
The Prime
Minister's Office has refused to disclose details of correspondence between
Narendra Modi as Gujarat Chief Minister and then PM Atal Behari Vajpayee during
the 2002 Gujarat riots, saying "concerned third parties" have said
the same is of "confidential nature" and will have the effect of
impending the ongoing inquiry, investigation and trial in the 2002 riots.
PMO, on March
3 in response to an 15-month old RTI application by activist Subhash Chandra
Agarwal, has said that "concerned third parties" have not given their
consent to disclose the said information. PMO has not specified if the third
party referred to by it is the Gujarat CM Office, Vajpayee or Modi himself. The
correspondence sought is believed to be significant as Vajpayee, while
addressing a media conference in 2002, had famously advised Modi to observe his
'Raj Dharma' under which no one would be discriminated.
The PMO reply
now cites a dissent note as conveyed to it by "concerned" third
parties which is reproduced in the RTI reply as follows: "Information
sought for by the applicant is the correspondence between the then Chief
Minister and the then Prime Minister. The disclosure of this will prejudicially
affect certain pending proceedings. The information sought for by the applicant
is of a confidential nature and it will have the effect of impending the
ongoing inquiry, investigation and trial. The Hon'ble CM being the head of the
Council of Ministers, the record of deliberations by the Hon'ble CM is required
to be constitutionally and legally protected from disclosure. Keeping in view
of the said facts, under section 8(1)(h) of the 'Right to Information Act,
2005' the information as sought for by applicant cannot be disclosed." The
PMO said it is "inclined to agree" with this submission made by the
third parties.
Agarwal has
now filed an appeal on March 7 against the PMO decision. "It is
significant that learned CPIO has not made it clear which person/s he has
considered 'third parties' while invoking third-party information. Neither it
is clear when these objections were received from concerned third parties.
Copies of objections-letters also gain significance in view of extra-ordinary
delay in furnishing of response dated 03.03.2015 to an RTI petition filed about
fifteen months back when the then Chief Minister of Gujarat has now become
Prime Minister of India, and the then Prime Minister of India is not keeping
good health so as to even respond to such third-party comments sought under
provision of section 11 of RTl Act," Agarwal has said in his appeal to the
First Appellate Authority on March 7.
His appeal
adds that the objections of the concerned third parties because of matter
concerned being under investigations does not hold good because section 8(I)(h)
of RTl Act prohibits information which might impede process of investigation
and not at all for matter being simply under investigation. "Making sought
information public through this RTI petition can never-never impede any process
of investigation now after about 13 long years of the matter for which already reports
of several enquiry-commissions being already made public. I therefore once
again appeal that learned CPIO may kindly be directed to overlook objections of
third-parties and provide the information free-of-cost," the appeal says.
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