Examine RTI's exemption categories before releasing human rights violation report: Gujarat's top Info Commissioner

Balwant Singh

By Rajiv Shah
Gujarat’s chief information commissioner Balwant Singh, in a ruling, which is unlikely to be taken kindly by RTI activists, has said that senior IAS official Sanjay Prasad’s two-year-old report on the death of three Dalit youths in police firing of September 2012, may be public, as it relates to a “human rights violation”, but under certain condition.
The release of the report, says Singh, should be done after examining if the report or its portions are under the Right to Information (RTI) Act’s exemption category Section 8(1).
Putting the job of examining this on Gujarat government officials, Singh says, they should find out if any of its portions in the report fall under the “exemption” categories of Section 8(1)(a), 8(1)(c), 8(1)(g) and 8(1)(i).
He underlines, the commission under him “is imposing this condition because the commission has not has not seen the report, which is supposed to be under submission and pending for government’s decision.”
Section 8(1)(a) exempts disclosure which would “prejudicially affect the sovereignty and integrity of India”; section 8(1)(c) exempts disclosure, if it leads to “breach of privilege of Parliament or State Legislature”; Section 8(1)(g) exempts disclosure if it endangers “the life or physical safety of any person”; and Section 8(1)(i) exempts disclosure about “cabinet papers, including records of deliberations of the Council of Ministers, Secretaries and other officers.”
As the commission “is not in a position to decide whether any provisions of the Section 8(1) of the RTI Act will be attracted in this matter”, Singh says, it is the job of the First Appellate Authority, who is Additional Secretary, Law and Order, Home Department, Gujarat government, to do the job.
“He should examine whether any of the above provisions of Section 8(1) will be attracted in this matter. He should also examine whether the report can be disclosed after severing any part of it which contains exempt information under Section 8(1)(a) or 8(1)(g) of the said Act”, he says.
“Before doing this”, Singh says, “The Appellate Authority has to make sure that the provisions of Section 8(1)(c) or 8(1)(i) are not attracted in this matter.” At the same time, it allowed the applicant, Kirit Rathod, a Dalit rights activist who had sought to make public the report through an RTI plea, 45-days time to put forward his position.
Singh imposes these conditions despite the fact that he believes the “special branches of the home Department may be handling a range of issues, but not all of which can be said to affect ‘intelligence and security’ aspects of the state.”
He clarifies, “The inquiry report of Sanjay Prasad may have some effect on law and order issues in certain areas, but it cannot be said to adversely affect the ‘intelligence and security’ matters of the state.”
The death of three Dalit youths sparked statewide protest against the police action, following which the Gujarat government was forced to ask the then social justice and empowerment secretary Sanjay Prasad to examine into the incident. Ever since Prasad submitted his report, Rathod had been seeking to look into its details, but in vain.