‘Secret file’: Govt refuses to share deliberation details behind Agnipath scheme

The Defence Ministry denied information sought by Pune based activist Vihar Durve under the Right to Information (RTI) Act

Updated on: Sep 10, 2022, 19:50:41 IST

By Chetan Chauhan

Prefer HTon Google

Share via

Copy link

The Defence Ministry has refused to share details of the inter-ministerial deliberations behind the Agnipath scheme for military recruitment sought under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, saying the file has been marked as “secret”, according to a letter from the ministry.

RTI activists claimed that the information on Agnipath scheme is wrongly denied. (File Photo)

The reason for denying the information sought by Pune based RTI activist, Vihar Durve, is not covered under Section 8 and 9 of the transparency law, according to RTI experts. The Sections 8 and 9 provide provisions under which information can be denied to an application.

On July 14, 2022, defence minister Rajnath Singh in a press conference announced the introduction of the military recruitment scheme, Agnipath, in which 46,000 personnel will be hired in December 2022 and February 2023.

One-fourth of Agniveers, who will get a monthly salary of ₹30,000 in the first year and ₹40,000 in the fourth year, will be selected for permanent commission in the armed forces. At the end of the four year contract, Agniveers will get a corpus of ₹11 lakh, which the government said would help them to create self-employment avenues or pursue higher education. The central para-military forces and the Assam Rifles have assured 10% job opportunities for Agniveers.

Durve sought information on the inter-ministerial deliberations and reasons for introducing Agnipath scheme to replace the ongoing recruitment scheme, which provided for longer period of military employment. In his RTI application dated July 23, 2022, Durve also asked about the discussion regarding the pay package and allowances for recruits under the scheme, who would be called Agniveers.

As the information officer of the Department of Military Affairs denied giving the information about the scheme, which the Defence ministry implemented from the first week of August by conducing recruitment for armed forces in different parts of the country, Durve filed the first appeal with the department saying the information has been denied to him wrongly.

“The information is wrongly denied as ‘files marked as secret’ cannot be a reason for denying information,” Durve said. He filed an appeal against the denial of information with the first appellate authority, Abhimany Sahoo, in the defence ministry.

Responding to his first appeal filed on August 17, Sahoo said the information has been rightly denied.

“I had gone through your aforesaid 1st RTI appeal and the information provided by the CPIO (Central Public Information Officer) dated 29th July, 2022 with respect to your RTI application dated 11th July, 2022. In this connection, it is informed that the file on Agnipath Scheme approval has been classified as SECRET. Therefore, the response of the CPIO is in order,” he said.

India’s first chief information commissioner Wajahat Habibullah said the classification as “confidential” or “secret” is an internal procedure of the department and cannot be used to deny the information as this procedure is not mentioned under Section 8 and 9 of the RTI Act.

“The information officer should have cited the specific RTI law section to deny information. Apply secret as a reason shows that the ministry is not keen to share the reasons for starting such an important scheme,” he said.

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

Follow India news real-time updates and the latest news covered on Hindustan Times, featuring today's critical updates on Sonam Wangchuk Hunger Strike LIVE and more across India.