RTI request for 13 inquiry commission reports rejected

The Central Information Commission has slammed the Home Ministry for denying information on 13 inquiry commission reports on communal riots in the country. In response to an RTI request, the Ministry said it was not the custodian of the records sought.

Charging the Ministry’s Public Information Officer (PIO) with “causing deliberate obstruction to the flow and dissemination of information…and not furnishing any reasonable justification for such complete inaction,” Central Information Commissioner Bimal Julka asked why punitive action should not be initiated.

In his strongly worded December 27 order, Mr. Julka noted that the issue involved the larger public interest and directed the Home Secretary to depute a senior official to find out the status and location of the 13 reports and the reason for the denial of information within 15 days. In 2006, the Home Ministry had constituted a working group of the National Integration Council “to study the reports of the Judicial Commissions and Inquiry Commissions about the anatomy of Communal Riots.”

Communal violence

The working group examined 29 such reports, investigating the causes and course of communal violence across the country, from riots in several Madhya Pradesh towns in February 1961 to deadly attacks on a Kerala beach in May 2003.

While the working group’s own report is on the Home Ministry’s website, only 16 of the inquiry reports it studied are available.

Anjali Bhardwaj, co-convenor of the National Campaign for People’s Right to Information (NCPRI), had filed an RTI request in July 2017 asking for the other 13 reports to be also made available, with all their volumes and annexures.

Not receiving any response within the stipulated 30-day time frame, Ms. Bhardwaj filed a first appeal. A day later, in a late response, the Ministry’s PIO simply dismissed the request saying that she was not the custodian of the records sought.

“This information is available in the MHA as the reports sought by me were examined by a working group set up by the MHA,” pointed out Ms. Bhardwaj, contradicting the Ministry’s claim. She added that the PIO should have transferred the application if the information was held by a different public authority.