CIC asks NCW to provide all Nithari files to activist
as reported by Arpit Parashar, August 24, 2008, ExpressIndia
Noida, August 23 In a landmark judgement on the Nithari killings, the Central Information Commission (
CIC) on Saturday pulled up the National Commission for Women (NCW) for failing to maintain proper records of information relating to the case.
The judgements in two cases filed by Commodore Lokesh Batra (Retd) an
RTI activist, with the
CIC against the NCW have imposed penalty on the commission and “strongly recommended to the Ministry of Women and Child Development that the Ministry institute a regular administrative structure for the Commission, which will then bring its functioning into conformity with the
RTI Act, 2005, by instituting a system of maintenance of records.”
The
CIC also asked the commission to complete the exercise “within thirty days of the issue of this decision.”
After Batra was denied access to files in the National Commission for Women records, the
CIC has now ruled he be provided access to all files connected with Nithari killings on August 26 at 11 am in the office of the National Commission for Women. “This will include those on the concerned subjects which are in the custody of the Chairperson and any other officers... who are custodian (s) of the information sought,” the order further states.
Newsline had reported last year that Girija Vyas, Chairperson of the NCW, wrote a letter to the Prime Minister on January 15, 2007 (copy of the letter received from PMO through an
RTI) defending the commission after an Indian Express report that came out the same day said the NCW had been sleeping on the case till the skeletons tumbled out. The letter says “NCW had taken prompt action as soon as report of missing girls was brought to its notice.”
She also mentioned that after August 2005, “neither guardians nor parents of the missing girls nor any mediaperson or any other organisation approached us (NCW) for any further action.”
However, Usha Thakur, a social activist who lives in sector-31 and has worked with the victims’ kin for over three years now, had written a complaint letter to the President, Prime Minister and NCW, besides 13 other higher-ups dated May 18, 2006.
In response to another
RTI filed with the NCW by Commodore Batra, the commission’s reply says “the letter dated May 18, 2006 by Usha Thakur was received in the commission on May 23, 2006” but “availability of the complaint was not known to the Chairperson (Girija Vyas) and other senior officials at the time of writing the letters to the honourable Prime Minister and Sonia Gandhi.” Similarly, as reported by Newsline last month, the NCW had termed information demanded by Batra through a
RTI application “cumbersome” and stated in its reply that it “cannot be provided.”
Batra had made a presentation before the
CIC regarding all the cases where such information had been concealed or mishandled.
“It is a success of the
RTI activism that such a presentation was allowed and the
CIC took note of the lax system of the NCW,” Batra said.
CIC asks NCW to provide all Nithari files to activist - Express India