Karnataka Information Commission (KIC) is confronting a ‘missing record syndrome’.
As the suggestion of lodging a police complaint is not working, the KIC has issued a fresh directive to the Department of Personnel and Administrative Reforms to fix responsibility for the missing records and issue a circular on maintenance and preservation of records, to all departments within 60 days.
In at least three cases, people invoking the RTI Act were denied a reply on the ground that the related records have gone missing. An RTI activist Veeresh Bellur of Bangalore, H D Rangappa of Tumkur and George Thomas of Hoskote taluk were not given documents sought, on the pretext of missing records.
Inquiry
In Rangappa’s case, the KIC had even directed the Tumkur Municipal authorities to lodge a police complaint of missing records, while in the George Thomas case, it ordered that the Assistant Commissioner, Bangalore North Sub-Division should hold a detailed enquiry into the missing records.
After the KIC direction in Rangappa’s case, Veeresh approached the police directly when he was told that a particular file had gone missing.
The police did not register any offence and merely recorded in its file as a case under the miscellaneous category, under which a matter cannot be investigated.
Veeresh added that when he used RTI to know why an offence could not be registered in missing record case, he was told that there was no provision for registering offence under Section 154 of CrPC.
Once again Veeresh approached the KIC which gave a directive to the Department of Personnel and Administrative Reforms to issue a circular within 60 days on the preservation and maintenance of records, duties and responsibilities of the officers at various levels.
It also directed to adopt a standard procedure in case of loss of records and file a compliance report with the Commission with a copy of the circular.
Talking to Deccan Herald, Veeresh Bellur stated that the Central Government has a provision under the Public Records Act to officers accountable if records go missing, but in Karnataka no such law prevails.
Senior advocate C V Nagesh too says that there is no accountability on officers if a record goes missing. He said, “there is no provision in IPC or CrPC to deal with missing records. The only thing that can be done is that missing records could be treated as theft and a case under Sections 379 and 380 of the IPC could be registered,” said Mr Nagesh.