IB move HC against order to provide info to Sanjiv Chaturvedi
NEW DELHI : The Intelligence Bureau (IB) on Tuesday challenged in the Delhi High Court a single judge’s order upholding a direction of chief information commissioner (CIC) to the agency to give its report on alleged harassment and false cases against (Indian Forest Officer) IFS officer Sanjiv Chaturvedi for exposing graft.
In its appeal against the single judge’s August 23 order, the IB has contended that the organisation and any information furnished by it to the government is excluded from the purview of the transparency law, Right to Information (RTI) Act.
The matter came up before a bench of Justices S Ravindra Bhat and Sunil Gaur which listed it for hearing on December 12.
Chaturvedi, currently posted as Conservator of Forest at Haldwani in Nainital District of Uttarakhand, had sought through RTI, a copy of the IB report submitted in regard to alleged false cases filed against him by “corrupt” officers exposed by him during his term as divisional forest officer (DFO) in Haryana.
The information was sought from the ministry of environment which had sought the opinion of the IB before furnishing the details sought.
The Intelligence Bureau had objected to the disclosure, after which Chaturvedi had approached the CIC.
The CIC on April 21, 2016, had held that even though the IB is exempted from sharing information under section 24 of the RTI Act, it has to provide information pertaining to allegations of corruption and human rights violations.
The agency appealed against the decision in the high court which dismissed its plea.
Chaturvedi, who served as the chief vigilance officer at AIIMS from 2012-14, in his application to the CIC had said that obtaining the report would help him fight the violation of his human rights caused by those public servants whose corruption he had exposed as part of his duties as an Indian Forest Service officer.
The IFS officer had argued that the harassment and false allegations against him were directly linked to his exposure of corruption in the Haryana government, as well as the All India Institute of Medical Sciences.