Share finding of court martial on ‘encounters’ within 15 days: Information Commission to Army

NEW DELHI: In a landmark order, the Central Information Commission has ordered the Army to make public details of the controversial Pathribal and Machil fake encounter cases.

The transparency watchdog has directed Army to provide under Right to Information Act details of findings of the court martial of five Army personnel tried for Machil encounter in 2010, chargesheet filed before the court martial, sentence awarded to the Army personnel and proceedings of the court of inquiry in the killings of five persons in Pathribal (Anantnag district) in 2000. The pro-disclosure order comes almost two years after RTI activist Venkatesh Nayak sought copies of court of inquiry and court martial proceedings.

His January 2015 RTI was rejected under Section 8 (1) (h) of RTI Act. Section 8 of RTI Act lists out categories and grounds of exemption from disclosure.

Section 8(1)(h)says, “Notwithstanding anything contained in this Act, there shall be no obligation to give any citizen information which would impede the process of investigation or apprehension or prosecution of offenders.”

During the hearings at the Commission, Nayak had pointed out that the court martial proceedings had been wrapped up. In his order Information Commissioner DP Sinha has said, “Commission observes… that there are no tenable grounds for invoking Section 8(1)(h) for query nos 1 to 4 of the RTI application. CPIO has clarified during the hearing that no investigation is pending and that Section 8(1)(h) was invoked with respect to the pendency of prosecution confirmation…

In the absence of any plausible justification for invoking the exemption of Section 8(1)(h), Commission finds it inappropriate on the part of the CPIO to have denied the information… Commission directs the CPIO to provide all available and relevant information to the appellant within 15 days from the date of receipt of this order.”