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Journalism of Courage
Chief Information Commissioner Wajahat Habibullah on Wednesday said the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) can very well go to the High Court and get a stay on the Central Information Commission (CIC) direction to the foreign office to disclose file notings on the drafting of Indo-Pak Joint Statement at Sharm-el-Sheikh in Egypt during the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit held last year.
There is a clear provision in the Right to Information (RTI) Act which says that the government need not disclose information given by a foreign country in confidence or if the data would affect the relationship with that nation. The MEA can of course go to the High Court under this provision, Habibullah told The Indian Express on Wednesday.
Two specific clauses of Section 8 of the RTI Act deal with disclosure of documents relating to Indias relationship with foreign countries.
Not willing to comment on the order passed by fellow Information Commissioner Annapurna Dixit,the countrys top transparency panel chief said that information on the Sharm-el-Sheikh files was different from the information RTI applicants usually want from the MEA.
MEA very often takes this stand (of non-disclosure). RTI applications involving the MEA is usually about administrative matters and not so much on foreign policy as it has happened in this case.This is very similar to the Jinnah House one, he said. Habibullah in January 2008 had sought MEA correspondence on a plan to lease Jinnah House,a Mumbai property of Pakistan founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah,to Dina Wadia.
In the present case,Dixit declined an MEA plea that the Joint Statement was drafted immediately during the PM-level meeting on the sidelines of the NAM summit and no file notings exist.
No file notings exist pertaining to decisions taken with regard to the drafting of the text of the Joint Statement as issued after the meeting of the Prime Minister of India and Pakistan at Sharm-el-Sheikh. The said Joint Statement was drafted immediately at the PM-level meeting on the sidelines of the NAM summit, said the MEA in a December 29,2009 reply to the CIC.
The MEA had tended to ignore a CIC order during the hearing to produce before the Commission the foreign office file on the Joint Statement despite repeated reminders from Dixits office in December 2009.
