How intelligence docu of riot period were classified, HC asks

The Gujarat High Court has asked the the state government to file an affidavit on the procedure whereby documents containing intelligence records of the 2002 post-Godhra riots were classified as 'secret'.
The division bench of Chief Justice Bhaskar Bhattacharya and Justice J B Pardiwala yesterday asked the government to specify under which rules/law such a classification was done, when it was done, and who did it.
The court also asked the state government to clarify its stand on discrepancies on the status of some intelligence records, as alleged by the suspended IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt.
The government produced original registers related to intelligence records of 2002 riots yesterday, as directed by the HC last week.

In October, the court had asked the state to hand over certain documents to Bhatt, so as to allow him to depose before the Justices Nanavati-Mehta Commission which is probing the riots. These papers pertained to February 2002 to November 2002 period.
Bhatt had sought the documents to file an affidavit before the commission regarding the alleged roles played by various government officials during the riots. He moved the HC after commission said it can't give any direction.

Advocate General Kamal Trivedi had then told the court that the documents were intact, and would be produced before the Commission within seven days.

But later, the state government told the Commission that nine out of the 47 documents had been destroyed in "routine course". It produced 15 documents, and said remaining were "classified" or not maintained, or untraceable.
In November 2012, the state had moved an application before the High Court, seeking modification of the October order that had been passed on Trivedi's statement. People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) and Bhatt opposed them. Further hearing in the matter is on September20.