NOT many users of the Maharashtra Right to Information (MRTI) Act are stubbled college boys growing their hair, rock-star style, until it’s time to don the pinstripe shirts.
But then, Neel Kumar 21, is the son of Navleen Kumar, tribal land rights activist and victim of a brutal murder two years ago in lawless, land-rich Nallasopara.
On August 31, Neel applied under the MRTI Act to the Home Department. He wanted details on why the file seeking the government’s go-ahead to interrogate Manik Patil—among the chief accused in the Navleen murder case and currently serving life in another murder case at Yerawada—was languishing in the Home Department for over six months, a lapse reported by Newsline in June.
He also applied to the jail superintendent, demanding Patil’s medical records, prescriptions and details of his visitors. (When interrogation by the state Crime Investigation Department (CID) was imminent, Patil had admitted himself into hospital).
| | Waiting for justice |
• On June 19, 2002, Navleen Kumar was stabbed 19 times
• While the CID was awaiting permission to interrogate accused Manik Patil in Pune, the fast track sessions court at Palghar was about to let the trial proceed
• Neel then filed a writ seeking a stay on the lower court’s proceedings. The stay ends on October 11 |
A month later, neither application elicited a reply.
‘‘I’ll keep harassing them until something comes of it,’’ he says.
Neel is every bit the college boy—his earnest application is more a hopeful son’s questions than a law student’s missive.
In contrast, former chief secretary J B D’Souza’s application bears the stamp of a seasoned traveller in the corridors that house a ‘‘supine bureaucracy’’.
On June 29, D’Souza asked for similar details—papers processing the CID’s request for Patil’s custody—from the Home Department.
The reply was curt: ‘‘The information you have sought is of a personal nature...”
Incredibly, the reply was not only 24 working days late, but was also incomplete. Neither were details of the appellate authority stated, nor the last date for filing an appeal—both mandatory under the Act.
D’Souza appealed, detailing under the ‘Grounds for Appeal’ head two typed pages of an old hand’s reading of the fine print. He followed it up with letters to Mantralaya (‘‘Two recent letters I wrote to your chief secretary have met with stony silence...’’).
Neel knows D’Souza stands a better chance. But what he lacks in experience, he makes up for in courage. ‘‘If you knew my mother, you’d understand.’’
kavithaiyer@expressindia.com