Governance Now: New Delhi: Friday,
April 29, 2016.
Amidst uproar
in parliament over corruption in the AgustaWestland chopper deal and BJP MP
Subramanian Swamy’s attack on Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, another twist in the
tale has emerged. In 2014 when prominent RTI activist Subhash Chandra Agrawal
filed a query seeking information on the controversial deal, his plea was
rejected citing national security.
Agrawal had
filed the RTI petition on March 21, 2014 (when UPA was still in power) to the
defence ministry seeking details of the sudden termination of the deal with the
Italian firm AgustaWestland for supply of 12 helicopters to India.
Irregularities came to light in February 2013 when the firm’s CEO Guiseppe Orsi
was arrested on corruption charges in Italy. The then defence minister AK
Antony ordered a probe the next day, and the deal was cancelled in January
2014.
The defence
ministry and the Indian air force (IAF) provided some information to the RTI
filed by Agrawal but withheld critical information citing several exemption
clauses of the Act, including 8(1)(h), 8(1)(a) and 8(1)(d), relating to impeding
process of investigation, security and strategic aspects, and commercial
aspects.
Agrawal says
the exemption clauses under various sub-sections of section 8(1) are not meant
to provide “a hiding cover for scams, scandals and corruption”. Moreover,
section 8(2) of the Act provides access to information in case public interest
overweighs other concerns, which is the case here.
Agrawal had
sought (1) complete information together with related file-notings/ documents/
correspondence/ agreement etc on (a) signing of the AgustaWestland deal. But
the CPIO at the Air Headquarters vide response Air HQ/234011204/4/57641EIPS
dated 14.02.2014 declined information on query (l-a) as exempted under section
8(1)(a) of the RTI Act allegedly because of security and strategic interest of
the nation.
His query (3)
was about the total cost of helicopters and terms of payment, including payment
already made with dates of respective payments. The CPIO rejected the plea
citing exemption under section 8(1)(d), which relates to commercial aspects.
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