Business Standard: New Delhi: Friday,
July 29, 2016.
The crucial
Strategic Forces Command (SFC), which looks after the nuclear arsenal of the
country, has been kept out of the ambit of the Right to Information (RTI) Act.
The SFC has
been included in the list of 26 intelligence and security agencies, which are
exempted from providing information under the transparency law, said a senior
official in the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), which acts as a
nodal authority for implementation of the RTI law.
The
responsibility of the Strategic Forces Command is to operationalise the
directives of the Nuclear Command Authority (NCA), which is under Prime
Minister Narendra Modi's control.
The Command
has the sole responsibility of initiating the process of delivering nuclear
weapons and warheads after acquiring explicit approval from the NCA.
The DoPT has
issued a notification in this regard without citing any reason for exempting
the SFC. The first Commander-in- Chief of the Command was appointed in 2002.
The
organisations like the Central Bureau of Investigation, Enforcement
Directorate, National Investigation Agency, Special Protection Group and
Financial Intelligence Unit, among others, are exempted from providing
information under the RTI Act.
However, the
information pertaining to the allegations of corruption and human rights
violations shall be provided by these 26 organisations, the Act says.
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