Guj police yet to provide encounter killing details: Setalvad

Civil rights activist Teesta Setalvad today claimed that despite Gujarat Information Commission's order, the state police department is yet to provide details about the encounter killings and custodial deaths that took place between 2002 and 2005.
The Chief Information officer (CIC) of Gujarat Information Commission in its order of March 12, 2013, had directed state IGP to provide all the information on encounter killings and custodial deaths in the state.
In his order to Inspector General of Police, Law & Order (Crime), CIC has also directed to provide within 45 days information on crime against women and suicides across the state from 2000 to 2007.

The CIC, D Rajagopalan, has passed an order on an appeal filed by Setalvad after her three applications under RTI, seeking those details, were rejected by the concerned information officer and appellate authority.
Her applications were turned down on the ground that the information sought were barred under the provisions of RTI and also prohibited under the notification of the state government.
"As per CIC orders we were supposed to be provided with the information by April 27. But till date, we have not received any of it and we have sent a letter to the state DGP reminding him of the order," Setalvad told PTI.

CIC, in its order had observed that, "the approach adopted by the PIO and the first Appellate Authority to take a sweeping decision on the information sought by the appellant without giving any clear justification, prima-facie appears to be erroneous".
"The appellant has sought primarily statistical information pertaining to custodial deaths and encounter deaths, crimes against women and suicides in urban and rural areas," order stated.
"All such information is generally compiled by the field-level police stations, collated at higher level and submitted to the Government periodically and the Commission feels that this work is a normal routine function of the police department and to debar such information is definitely not the intention of section 24 of the RTI Act, 2005," it further observed.