No count of corruption cases against officers of CPOs: MHA

Ashwini Shrivastava

New Delhi, Dec 9 (PTI) Believe it or not! The Union Home ministry says it does not maintain a count of corruption cases against officers from different Central Police Organisations (CPOs) and Intelligence Bureau (IB) under its control.

This admission came in reply to an Right to Information
(RTI) query, which sought information on the number of
corruption complaints received against officers of Border
Security Force (BSF), Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF),
National Security Guard (NSG), Assam Rifles, Sashastra Seema
Bal (SSB) and IB during last five years.

The ministry said it attended to the complaints on a
"case-to-case" basis and decisions were taken at various
levels.

"Depending on the nature of the complaint and the rank of
the officer against whom allegations are made, decisions are
taken and processed at various levels. This ministry does not
maintain a count of complaints received at various levels," it
said.

When contacted, Director (Personnel) and CPIO Barun
Kumar Sahu said he could not share more information on the
reply.

The ministry cited sections 2(f) and 2 (j) of Right to
Information Act and said the information sought by the
applicant "is beyond information" and "require huge work and
resources not envisaged under RTI Act".

According to Section 2 (f) of the Act, information has
been defined as any material in any form including records,
documents, memos, e-mails, opinions, advices and press
releases.

It also incorporates circulars, orders, logbooks,
contracts, reports, papers, samples, models, data material
held in any electronic form and information relating to any
private body which can be accessed by a public authority under
any other law in force.

Under section 2 (j) of the Act, the information seeker
has the rights to inspect works, documents, records, take
notes, extracts or certified copies of documents or records,
take certified samples of material, obtain information in form
of printouts, diskettes, floppies, tapes, video cassettes or
in any other electronic mode or through printouts.

"Both sections, nowhere, means denial of information as
apparently done by the ministry," Rakesh Agrawal, General
Secretary Nyayabhoomi and a known RTI activist, said.

"Both the sections define the types of information that
can be obtained through the RTI Act. The ministry is the
authority to reveal such information," he said. PTI AKV
PMR
NNNN