Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, Sept 13: Chief Information Commissioner, G R Sufi today directed the Public Information Officer (PIO) of the State Vigilance Organization to provide information to the applicant regarding the corruption cases.
According to the brief ground of appeal before the State Information Commission, on February 8, 2012 Advocate Mohammad Ashraf Wani, son of Mohammad Amin Wani of Tral filed an RTI application before the PIO of State Vigilance Organization seeking information regarding conclusion of investigation by SVO in corruption cases against which sanction for launching prosecution was awaiting from the competent authorities.
However, the PIO while invoking Section 8(g) of the RTI Act refused the information on the plea that disclosure of information at this stage would impede the process of investigation.
Aggrieved with this order, the appellant filed first appeal before the First Appellate Authority of SVO. The First Appellate Authority didn’t interfere in the order of the PIO and dismissed the appeal. Again being aggrieved with this refusal to interfere in the order of PIO, the appellant filed 2nd appeal before the Commission on July 12, 2012.
After hearing both the parties and perusal of the Supreme Court’s recent landmark judgement in Dr Subramaniam Swamy Versus Dr Manmohan Singh and Another case, the Chief Information Commissioner observed, “Section 8(g) of the RTI Act is not applicable in the present case and the disclosure of information will not impede the process of investigation to be done by the Vigilance Organization
“The SVO is functioning under State Vigilance Mannual-19 which speaks about the final investigation report signed by the Commissioner of Vigilance. This report has already been sent to the competent authority as such the information was not required to be declined”, the CIC said.
While considering the argument of the SVO that in view of adverse security scenario in the State it would be endangering personal security and safety of affected people if their names were disclosed, the CIC directed the PIO to provide information by with-holding the name of accused or using some code for the names. However, the PIO was directed to disclose the designation, department, date of sending case for accord of sanction and alleged loss of Government revenue as determined by the SVO in its final report.
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