The Chief Minister of Haryana, Mr. Devi Lal’s disclosure, at a press conference in Chandigarh on December 9 that the Government ‘of India has not supplied to the State Government a copy of the Report of the Jaswant Singh Commission on charges of corruption leveled against the former Chief Minister of the state, Mr. Bhajan Lal, who now adorns the Union Cabinet as Minister for Irrigation is a brazen violation of the State’s rights no less than the people’s Tight to know.
That the refusal damns all the three concerned in the hole and comer probe, namely, Mr. Jas‘want Singh, the people who appointed him and Mr. Bhajan Lal, is evident. But a yet graver aspect is that the denial carries another step forward the Governments practice of suppressing reports of commissions of enquiry beginning with the report of the Thakkar Commission on the circumstances in which Mrs. Indira Gandhi was assassinated. Subsequently, even the Reports of the Mathew and the Venkatramaiah Commissions of the Punjab-Haryana dispute on Chandigarh were suppressed from the public. As will be pointed out presently in law all these acts of suppression are unconstitutional despite the commissions of Inquiry (Amendment) Act 1986.
In law Mr. Jaswant Singh’s report is nobody’s private possession but a “public document.” Section 74 of the Evidence Act, 1872 defines “public documents” in the widest of terms, they include all records of official bodies and of public officers legislative Judicial and executive. Plus private documents. The net is too wide for the Jaswant Singh Report to escape its grasp.
Once it is established that the report is a “public document” the Test follows inexorably. Little do we realize that S. 76 of the Evidence Act is virtually an embryo of “Freedom of Information Act?” It says clearly that every public officer having custody of a public document which any person has a right to inspect shall give that Person on demand” a certified copy thereof on payment of the prescribed fees. The crucial question is who has the right to inspect that particular document?
The Act drafted in the high noon of the Raj, wisely left the question open. But in the light of the Supreme Court’s rigging apart of the old limits of focus stand to enable a person to move the courts in public interest litigations even if there is no injury to the person himself the answer cannot possibly be in doubt any citizen with a bona fide interest in a public document has a right to inspect it. Without this right, public interest litigation becomes meaningless.
Justice Jaswant Singh’s inquiry was not instituted under any statue but his Report is in law, a pubic document in which the people of the country in general, of the State in particular and the State Government necessarily, have an undeniable legal interest indefeasible tight to a copy of the law. The Constitutional fortifies this right.
The shoddy course of the Jaswant Singh’s inquiry attracts these rights especially. On July 4, 1985, a deputation of Opposition led parties consisting of personalities of the eminence of Chaudhari Charan Singh. Babu Jagivan Ram, Mr. Devi Lal Prof. Madhu Dandavate and others presented a 53page Memorandum to the Prime Minister signed by 25 Opposition MPs and 22 Opposition MLAs of Haryana containing detailed charges of acts of grave misconduct against Mr. Bhajan Lal. Instead of appointing a regular Commission of Inquiry under the Commissions of Inquiry under the Commissions of Inquiry Act, 1952, Mr. Rajiv Gandhi referred the Memorandum to Mr. Jaswant Singh a retired judge of the Supreme Court to conduct a preliminary enquiry.”
In a detailed report on that facial inquiry Sumit Mitra and Prabhu Chawla, Correspondent of India Today (September 30, 1985), wrote: “the Government notification was gazetted on July 31 with Jaswant Singh taking charge the following day. And, in29 days flat, he had typed out with the help. of four Anil Dev Singh a senior advocate at the Supreme Court, was a panel lawyer for the Haryana Government; he relinquished his charge only on July 31 the day of his father’s appointment. They cited a host of defects in the findings and the procedure.
Article extracted from this publication >> December 30, 1988
