PMO wants RTI appeal on Netaji dismissed

The Prime Minister's Office has vehemently opposed before the Central Information Commission an application seeking documents relating to destruction of a government file, thirty years ago, on the mysterious death of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose.

The PMO was responding to a notice isued by CIC on a plea of 'Mission Netaji' -- a Delhi based organisation -- seeking information concerning destruction of a file, which contained reports of investigation into the circumstances leading to Netaji's death.

The file was destroyed by the government in 1972.

Mission Netaji's official Anuj Dhar had moved the CIC in November last year, after the Central Public Information Officer of PMO denied papers pertaining to destruction of its file titled 'investigation into the circumstances leading to the death of Sri Subhas Chandra Bose.'

The CPIO had said that the file was destroyed in 1972 during the routine process of review and weeding of old records.

The CIC, which has fixed August 10 this year for hearing the issue, had called for PMO's comments.

Terming the application as 'not maintainable,' PMO's Director and CPIO Kamal Dayani in his response to the Commission, on May 17, has called for its dismissal and has suggested that an appeal, with its Appellate Authority, should first have been made.

Dhar, however, contended that the CPIO's response to him had lacked information on particulars of PMO's Appellate Authority, to whom an appeal could have been made.

The RTI Act, which discusses provisions on appeal procedure, makes it mandatory for CPIO of a public authority to communicate, in its reply, particulars of such authority in its office where an appeal may be placed, the applicant said.

"It is a fact that the letter of CPIO did not mention the details of the Appellate Authority to whom appeal against the reply of CPIO lies," the CPIO admitted in his response, placed before the Commission.

Dhar's RTI application, which was originally filed before the Cabinet Secretariat in August last year was later transferred to the PMO.

The application was filed to understand circumstances in which a sensitive PMO file dealing with the highly controversial fate of a national hero was destroyed at a time when a judicial inquiry into the matter was on, Dhar contended in his RTI request.

"It is very suspicious that the routine process of review/weeding of old records overlooked this and the file was destroyed along with some useless records," he stated.