RTI query leads to Balco report ‘leak’

A Union government body is in the dock for allegedly conducting improper tests in the Balco chimney collapse case, in which 40 people died, and providing the report to a citizen under the Right To Information Act before it was submitted in a court hearing the case.

Updated on: Apr 13, 2010, 23:47:54 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

Prefer HTon Google

Share via

Copy link

A Union government body is in the dock for allegedly conducting improper tests in the Balco chimney collapse case, in which 40 people died, and providing the report to a citizen under the Right To Information Act before it was submitted in a court hearing the case.

Chhattisgarh police have arrested three top officials of the Faridabad-based National Council for Cement and Building Material on the charge of destroying evidence and hampering the process of natural justice.

“…Facts and evidences show they (NCCBM officials) were fully aware and confident that it is a false report, and on the basis of which the accused (Balco officials) can save their skin,” said Korba district SP Rattan Lal Dangi in a reply to the Central Information Commission.

The commission has issued a notice to Dangi after the council’s director-general M. Vasudeva alleged that three scientists had been arrested for providing the test report to a citizen in January under the RTI Act and supposedly helping Balco.

The council later withdrew its allegation, but the police took objection, saying it was the “moral responsibility” of the council to inform the person seeking the information to collect it from the police. “Not doing so brings the organisation under doubt,” Dangi said.

An apparent reason for Dangi’s claim was Balco’s advocate telling a court in February that the tests were not done according to Bureau of Indian Standard specifications and, therefore, they could not be treated as credible evidence. This was before the police could present the report to the court.

IIT Roorkee had examined the test report for Balco, whose findings were corroborated for the police by the National Institute of Technology, Raipur.

Dangi said no one except the investigating officer and the court were allowed to inspect any document related to an ongoing probe.

The police have charged three scientists for causing disappearance of evidence and giving false information. Dangi said the arrests would “defy the habit of giving recommendations not based on tests reports and creating hindrance in impartial justice”.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

Catch every big hit, every wicket with Crickit, a one stop destination for Live Scores, Match Stats, Infographics & much more. Explore now!

Stay updated with all top Cities including, Bengaluru, Delhi, Mumbai and more across India. Stay informed on the latest happenings in World News along with Delhi Election 2025 and Delhi Election Result 2025 Live, New Delhi Election Result Live, Kalkaji Election Result Live at Hindustan Times.