Author: Girja Shankar Kaura
Publication: The Tribune
Date: March 22, 2009
URL: http://www.tribuneindia.com/2009/20090322/main5.htm
CIC turns down appeal to make Henderson Brooks
report public
The Central Information Commission (CIC) has
turned down the appeal of former MP Kuldip Nayar for making the analysis of
the 1962 India-China war, brought out in the Henderson Brooks report, public.
A bench of Chief Information Commissioner
Wajahat Habibullah and Information Commissioner M.L. Sharma today ruled that
the analysis would remain confidential at this stage as it contains sensitive
information over which the stance of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) till date
has been that it cannot be declassified.
In its order the bench said, "This division
bench agrees that no part of the report might at this stage be disclosed".
Former Rajya Sabha MP Kuldip Nayar had sought
the report, which was submitted three decades ago as an "internal review"
to the MoD, under the RTI Act. He had moved an application in front of the
Chief Information Commissioner in August 2007 after his earlier appeal was
not taken into account by the CIC.
The bench took into account various arguments
from the MoD including that of ministry's joint secretary Bimal Julka before
taking the decision.
Julka in his reply to the CIC said: "As
regards merit of the present complaint, it is informed that the matter has
been reviewed from time to time, in consultation with the Army Headquarters
and till date it has been the consistent stand for the ministry not to declassify
the report".
Nayar had initially written to the MoD in
2005 seeking the report saying that the report, which was now being 43-year-old,
should have been formally available in the Archives of India, 30 years after
it was submitted.
The MoD informed him that the Army Headquarters
was of the view that the document was presently classified and contains information,
which is sensitive. In view of the above, your request for making available
the copy of the document is regretted.
On CIC seeking the details from the MoD, it
was informed that the report prepared by Lt Gen Henderson Brooks and Brig
Prem Bhagat was a part of internal review conducted on the orders of the then
chief of Army staff Gen Choudhary.
"Reports of internal review are not even
submitted to the government let alone placed in the public domain. Disclosure
of this information will amount to disclosure of the Army's operational strategy
in the North-East and the discussion on deployments has a direct bearing on
the question of the demarcation of the Line of Actual Control between India
and China, a live issue under examination between the two countries at present,"
MoD said.
The CIC bench then also inspected the original
report, which had been placed before it, including the conclusion contained
in pages 199 to 222 of the main report and came to the conclusion that it
had a bearing on national security.
"We have examined the report specifically
in terms of its bearing on present national security. There is no doubt that
the issue of the India-China Border particularly along the North-East parts
of India is still a live issue with ongoing negotiations between the two countries
on this matter," the bench said, while adding that the disclosure of
information of which the Henderson Brooks report carries considerable detail
on what precipitated the war of 1962 between India and China will seriously
compromise both security and the relationship between India and China, thus
having a bearing both on internal and external security.
"We have examined the report from the
point of view of severability u/s 10(1). For reasons that we consider unwise
to discuss in this decision notice, this bench agrees that no part of the
report might at this stage be disclosed."
