CBI and RTI- Nira Radia case In continuation with my first letter about the response of CBI in very important matters related with RTI, I present one more example of their callousness and bad functioning. This is about the Nira Radia case in which the names of such big and important persons like Barkha Dutt, Vir Sanghvi and Ratan Tata was also doing the rounds and where Nira Radia was alleged to have played a middleman in very important dealings amounting to crores of rupees. In that case a few documents sup[posed to be that from the CBI had also come in public forum. One of them was the so-called letter written by Vineet Agrawal, an IPS officer who was previously with the CBI. Then many parts of the so-called CBI reports were also in public domain, mentioning the names I have written above as being involved in these murky deals. We, from the National RTI Forum, also asked the CBI on 10/05/2010 a few questions about Vineet Agrawal’s posting along with whether the letters in public were actually those from the CBI or not. We had also asked them if those documents were actually from CBI, how had they come in public domain and had any action been taken against those responsible for this. We got a reply from SP, CBI on 28/05/2010 which agreed about a FIR being registered in the UAS Licence case. But about all other things it wrote- “As per section 6(1) of the RTI Act, only one information can be obtained by one application.” This was a completely wrong interpretation and hence we wrote back to the Appellate authority giving reasons why this interpretation was wrong. This was on 08/06/2010. Now a letter from the CBI Officer (Joint Director) came on 29/06/2010 which agreed with our interpretation and asked the PIO to provide all the information as per law. And then we got a letter from another SP of CBI dated 27/072/2010. All that this letter says is that- “Vineet Agrawal, IPS joined CBI on 03/04/2010 and was relieved on 2/04/2010 on completion of his deputation tenure.” No information about all the relevant and important matters have been provided and the CBI answer is completely evasive on all these issues. As we all know these are matters of great national importance and yet the CBI is trying to shield facts from the public which they have all the right to know. What do you say about this attitude of the CBI? In National interest or some other interest? Dr Nutan Thakur, Convener, National RTI Forum, Lucknow # 94155-34525
