Not Much Right to Information, if it is about massacres of Muslims

Not much right to Info, if you want to get info on policemen who killed young, and innocent, Muslim youth

[JOHN DAYAL’S NOTE: Civil Society, grass roots workers, well meaning citizens, and of course the Church in India, has set much store by the hard won Right to Inform ration. We are hoping to use it to get their due rights to Dalits of all Faiths, including Dalit Christians. We hope to use it tom expose governments who have clamped the so called Freedom of Religion Acts in their states claming large scale forcible and fraudulent conversions to Christianity. And of course, we intend to use it to bring to task corrupt and malignant officials, policemen, institutions and organisations. It has been a few years since the RTI became a law across India. But is it easy to use to elicit or confirm the truth -- especially when the victims are poor, and the guilt is shared by the police and the state, both protected by an increasingly more communal political apparatus. The following is a case in point. This is the experience of Vrinda Grover, a Supreme Court of India lawyer.

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Hashimpura killings: RTI response

On 24th May 2007, to mark the twentieth anniversary of the communally motivated Hashimpura PAC custodial killings, victim families and survivors had filed 615 RTI applications in Lucknow.

613 RTI applications were filed at the office of the DGP at 1 Tilak Marg, Lucknow. Shri D.C. Pandey, DIG, who is the Public Information Officer (PIO). The survivors and families of the victims asked the State why the accused PAC men charged by a Delhi Sessions Court for the murder of 42 Muslim men, continue to be in active service of the PAC? Was any departmental inquiry initiated against them? Was any disciplinary action taken against them? Or were they rewarded with promotions in rank and emoluments? Were the 19 accused PAC men ever suspended from service? What were the grounds on which they were reinstated? They asked for copies of the Annual Confidential Report (ACR) of each of the accused persons to be made available.

In reply to these RTI applications some information has been made available. The ACR. of the accused PAC men reveals that mass custodial killing of Muslims does not even invite a negative comment in the Report. To the contrary the ACR noting for the year 1987 gives the PAC accused a glowing and congratulatory report. The ACR of 14 of the PAC accused that has been supplied states for the year 1987, " Kaam aur Aacharan Achha Hai. Satyanishtha Pramnit hai. Shreni Achha.". The career prospects of the accused were in no way hurt by the fact that the CBCID was enquiring into their role in the brutal killings of over 42 innocent Muslims.

The reply received from the State states that no Departmental Enquiry was ever conducted against any of the 19 PAC accused men, nor any disciplinary action taken. Was the mass killing of Muslims in custody not a cause serious enough to warrant a departmental enquiry?

Further documents obtained through RTI disclose that they were suspended very briefly in 1995 after the charge sheet was submitted by the CBCID. Within a year or more the accused PAC personnel were reinstated on flimsy and untenable grounds. Shockingly the reinstatement orders disclose that they were being reinstated, as the PAC required their services. So are we to conclude that the PAC requires the services of those men who have been charged with and are currently being prosecuted for the murder of over 42 innocent Muslim men. Other PAC men were reinstated as they were facing financial hardships. Of course no thought was spared for the families of Hashimpura who were rendered destitute due to the PAC custodial killings. The attitude and approach both of the State and the Police Department sends a clear signal condoning the communally motivated custodial killings and encouraging State impunity.

It is shocking to see that some of the documents supplied in reply are completely blank and the concerned officer has even attested the same. Such a brazen disregard for the rights of the people belies all claims of good and transparent governance.

RTI was also deployed to expose the complicity of the State and unmask the truth. The counsel for the victim families, Advocate Vrinda Grover, had filed 2 RTI applications with the Home Department. These RTI applications asked for a copy of the Inquiry Report submitted by the CBCID into the Hashimpura killings of Muslims by the PAC, to be made available. The State was asked to reveal how many persons were indicted by the CBCID Report as complicit in the PAC killings and why did the State sanction criminal prosecution only against 19 PAC men and not all the others indicted in the CB CID Report? The RTI application also pointedly asks the reasons for the delay in the prosecution of the PAC accused and the names of those responsible for the same.

The response of the State to these 2 RTI applications is very disappointing. The CBCID report has not been made available nor have answers been given to any of the above questions. The State has simply chosen to stonewall and blatantly violate the citizens right to information.

Against this 4 Appeals and 4 Complaints were been filed under the RTI Act with the Appellate Authority.

On 3rd September 2007 the Appeals were argued before Mr. Harmol Singh Director General CBCID, in Lucknow, by Adv. Vrinda Grover who was accompanied by Magsaysay award winner Sandeep Pandey, journalist Nasiruddin Haider Khan and Vanagna activist Puneet Goel. The DG. admitted that as per the RTI Act they ought to have answered the RTI's filed more than 3 months ago. The DG sought time and assured that information would be supplied shortly. The DG. CBCID also assured the delegation that CBCID as the prosecuting agency would ensure that the criminal trial pending in Delhi court is prosecuted effectively and efficiently.
Appeals are also pending before the State Information Commission. No date for hearing has yet been given.