1971 spy case goes to CIC

I have approached the Central Information Commission over the stand taken by the Ministry of External Affairs that the records pertaining to the recurring allegations that a minister of Indira Gandhi's cabinet had spied for the CIA during the 1971 war.

For a background, you might like to see this post -- MEA says can't give more than 20 years old record under RTI

In brief, the Ministry, which appears to have relevant records, refused to part with them stating that:

(i) The request for information/documents is based on reports of foreign Government, newspapers and books, which the government of India does not take cognizance of unsubstantiated reports.

(ii) In terms of Article 8 Section (3) of the RTI Act, authorities are obligated to divulge records/information of only those events which have happened within 20 years of the request being made.

Thereafter, I took up the matter with the Special Secretary and Appellate Authority in the MEA, but she reiterated the (i) and (ii) above.

Hence, the matter is now with the CIC. The following are the grounds for the relief:

1. The MEA has sidestepped the issue as well as given invalid reasons for rejecting my RTI request. I had made a similar RTI quest to the PMO, who clearly understood its import and provided me information available with them.

2. The MEA's assertion that "in terms of Article 8 Section (3) of the RTI Act, authorities are obligated to divulge records/information of only those events which have happened within 20 years of the request being made" is not correct. As per the ruling of the full Bench of the Central Information Commission in Appeal No CIC/AT/C/2006/00087 of Shri Sayantan Dasgupta dated July 5, 2007, "A plain reading of sub-section 3 makes it clear that a public authority is obliged to provide information which is more than 20 years old." In fact, to hold back historically important records just because they are more than 20 years old would mean to make them permanently inaccessible to researchers because the MEA is not known to release such records to the National Archives.

3. I submit that the Ministry's assertion that "the government of India does not take cognizance of unsubstantiated reports (like reports of foreign Government, newspapers and books)" is not true to the best of my knowledge as a journalist. I can readily cite an instance where the Government did take a serious note of a preposterous story published in a foreign magazine. MEA UO No C/551/12/93-JP dated 2.12.1993 and MEA UO No 6/551/12/93-JP dated 20.1.1994 relate to an article titled "Against whom Subhas Chandra Bose fought during world war II" published in Russian magazine Asia and Africa Today. These and other related records and media reports show that the GOI was sent into a tizzy over a madcap theory given out by a Russian writer to the effect that Netaji was an MI6 agent. The honourable Commission may ask the MEA to furnish records on this subject to verify the veracity of my claim. Compare to this, the 1971 war spy issue is rather serious one and there is no way the government could have missed taking note of some of the instances, like filing of a suit in the US by former Prime Minister of India, cited by me in my application.

4. I should like to state that the public interest in disclosure in this case outweighs the harm to the protected interests. My RTI request pertains to a case where a CIA agent operating out of the Union Cabinet betrayed the nation during the 1971 war. Declassified US government records clearly establish this fact. So, to withhold any information which might advance understanding on the matter will not be in the public interest. For example, we must know who this man was. More so, because the United States, the only friendly foreign nation to be affected by such disclosures, has already declassified most of the records, including those originating from the intelligence agencies.