Examine RTI exemption categories to release Dalits' death report: Gujarat CIC

Balwant Singh

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 made 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 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.

Comments

Disappearing schools: India's education landscape undergoing massive changes

The other day, I received a message from education rights activist Mitra Ranjan, who claims that a whopping one lakh schools across India have been closed down or merged. This seemed unbelievable at first sight. The message from the activist, who is from the advocacy group Right to Education (RTE) Forum, states that this is happening as part of the implementation of the National Education Policy (NEP), 2020, which floated the idea of school integration/consolidation.

Inside an UnMute conversation: Reflections on media, civil society and my journey

I usually avoid being interviewed. I have always believed that journalists, especially in India, are generalists who may suddenly be assigned a “beat” they know little—sometimes nothing—about. Still, when my friend Gagan Sethi , a well-known human rights activist, phoned a few weeks ago asking if I would join a podcast on civil society and the media, I agreed.

A Hindu alternative to Valentine's Day? 'Shiv-Parvati was first love marriage in Universe'

The other day, I was searching on Google a quote on Maha Shivratri which I wanted to send to someone, a confirmed Shiv Bhakt, quite close to me -- with an underlying message to act positively instead of being negative. On top of the search, I chanced upon an article in, imagine!, a Nashik Corporation site which offered me something very unusual. I don't know who owns this site, for there is nothing on it in the About Us link. It merely says, the Nashik Corporation site "is an educational and news website of the municipal corporation. Today, education and payment of tax are completely online." It goes on to add, "So we provide some of the latest information about Property Tax, Water Tax, Marriage Certificate, Caste Certificate, etc. So all taxpayer can get all information of their municipal in a single place.some facts about legal and financial issues that different city corporations face, but I was least interested in them." Surely, this didn't interest...

Overworked and threatened: Teachers caught in Gujarat’s electoral roll revision drive

I have in my hand a representation addressed to the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), Gujarat, urging the Election Commission of India (ECI) to stop “atrocities on teachers and education in the name of election work.” The representation, submitted by Dr. Kanubhai Khadadiya of the All India Save Education Committee (AISEC), Gujarat chapter -- its contents matched what a couple of teachers serving as Block Level Officers (BLOs) told me a couple of days esrlier during a recent visit to a close acquaintance.

'Shameful lies': Ambedkar defamed, Godse glorified? Dalit leader vows legal battle

A few days back, I was a little surprised to receive a Hindi article in plain text format from veteran Gujarat Dalit rights leader Valjibhai Patel , known for waging many legal battles under the banner of the Council of Social Justice (CSJ) on behalf of socially oppressed communities.

Whither GIFT City push? Housing supply soars in Mumbai, Hyderabad, Pune, not Ahmedabad

A new report by a firm describing itself as a "digital real estate transaction and advisory platform," Proptiger , states that the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) has been the largest contributor to housing units among India's top eight cities currently experiencing a real estate boom. Accounting for 26.9% of all new launches, it is followed by Pune with 18.7% and Hyderabad with 13.6%. These three cities collectively represented 59.2% of the new inventory introduced during the third quarter (July to September 2025), which is the focus of the report’s analysis.

The tribal woman who carried freedom in her songs... and my family’s secret in her memory

It was a pleasant surprise to come across a short yet crisp article by the well-known Gujarat-based scholar Gaurang Jani , former head of the Sociology Department at Gujarat University , on a remarkable grand old lady of Vedcchi Ashram —an educational institute founded by Mahatma Gandhi in South Gujarat in the early years of the freedom movement.

It is? Modi perspires four times a day to ensure face glow? But why he loved ACs?

A former Gujarat government official recently shared a tweet by Subramaniam Swamy where a video shows Prime Minister Narendra Modi telling school children in his hometown Vadnagar that their face would glow if they perspire four times a day. He suggested his face was glowing exactly because of this reason. I have no idea whether facial glow is linked with how many times you perspire in a day, but what I know is, Modi would profusely avoid any perspiration when he was Gujarat chief minister. Thus, in 2006, Modi undertook a fast in support of the Narmada project, which he said the Centre was not supporting. The fast, it was declared, lasted for about 51 hours. I don't recall which month it was, but to avoid perspiration, he got installed air conditions in the open, just next to the spot where he and his colleagues were undertaking fast for the Narmada dam. When some enterprising journalists tried watching the ACs, they were manhandled -- for it would show his fast in poor light. S...

India's Human Development Index loss due to inequality 'higher than' BRICS countries

Fresh data released by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), released this month, show that while India ranks 130 out of 189 countries in human development index (HDI), with HDI value of 0.640 on a scale of 1, this is “below the average of 0.645 for countries in the medium human development group”, even though it is “above the average of 0.638 for countries in South Asia.”

Search This Blog