COUNTERVIEW: National: Tuesday, May 01, 2018.
After waiting
for more than 40 days, well-known Right to Information (RTI) activist Venkatesh
Nayak has received a strange reply to his RTI plea regarding procedure followed
by the Union ministry of defence in “sanctioning” the prosecution of members of
the defence forces for human rights violations committed under the Armed Forces
(Jammu & Kashmir) Special Powers, 1990 (J&K AFSPA).
While the
reply says, the information on it is "not available/held with the
concerned agency of the Army”, ironically, the Ministry told Parliament early
this year that it had denied requests from the J&K Government for sanction
to prosecute security personnel in 50 cases that occurred during 2001-16.
While the
requests were pending in three cases, the Ministry’s reply to the Rajya Sabha
to an unstarred question by Husain Dalwai, MP, said, it had ‘denied’ sanction
to prosecute the accused in other cases involving allegations of ‘murder or
killing of civilians’ (17 cases), ‘rape’ (2 cases), ‘death in security
operations’ (10 cases), ‘custodial death’ (3 cases), ‘beating or torture’ (2
cases), ‘abduction and death (of the abducted person)’ (3 cases),
‘disappearance’ (7 cases), ‘illegal detention’ (1 case) ‘fake encounter’ (1
case) and ‘theft and molestation’ (2 cases).
Seeking a
photocopy of all official records containing details of the procedure that is
required to be followed by the ministry while deciding whether or not to grant
sanction for prosecuting any member of the defence forces, Nayak said in an
email alert to Counterview, he had also sought photocopies of official
records/documents containing the norms, criteria and standards that are
required to be applied for assessing the evidence submitted by the J&K
government.
Nayak further
sought the rank or designation of the officer who is competent to make a final
decision on whether or not to grant sanction for prosecuting any member of the
defence forces for actions committed under J&K AFSPA; and photocopies of
the communication sent by the Ministry to the J&K government denying
sanction for prosecution.
At the same
time, Nayak had sought inspection of every file including all papers,
correspondence, file notings and emails, if any, relating to the denial of
sanction for prosecution. The reply to Nayak, notably, comes against the
backdrop of the “good news” for the people in Meghalaya – lifting of the
draconian Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958 (AFSPA) from their State.
Section 7 of
J&K AFSPA requires that "no prosecution, suit or other legal
proceeding shall be instituted, except with the previous sanction of the
Central Government, against any person in respect of anything done or purported
to be done in exercise of the powers conferred by this Act."
Nayak
received the reply after several departments of the defence ministry apparently
avoided giving any reply to the RTI query. The Central Public Information
Officer (CPIO) of defence ministry transferred the RTI plea to another CPIO,
who sits in Sena Bhawan. The second CPIO transferred the RTI application to the
CPIO, Indian Army after next four days.
Interestingly,
the CPIO, Indian Army, sent Nayak an “acknowledgement” within a week of
receiving the RTI plea transferred by the Defence Department, saying as the
headquarters of the Indian Army worked only five days a week, and as there were
8 non-working days in a month, he should “accept” delayed response.
What Nayak,
who is with the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI), finally received
was a one line reply – that the information sought in the RTI application was
"not available/held with the concerned agency of the Army”!
Asks Nayak,
“If neither the defence ministry nor the Indian Army has the details of cases
sent by the J&K government requesting sanction for prosecution of defence
personnel, then what was the basis of the Minister's reply tabled in
Parliament?”
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