Reveal names of moles in 1971 spy case: CIC

The Central Information Commission has asked the External Affairs ministry to reveal the identity of the alleged mole of US spy agency CIA in former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s cabinet during the 1971 war with Pakistan. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Apr 30, 2009, 21:37:05 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The Central Information Commission (CIC) has asked the External Affairs ministry to reveal the identity of the alleged mole of US spy agency CIA in former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s cabinet during the 1971 war with Pakistan.

The CIC ruling came in response to an application filed under the Right to Information Act by Anuj Dhar, author of CIA’s Eye in South Asia. Dhar sought details of the alleged moles in the cabinet.

The spy case created a furor in 1983, when Semour Hersh, a US journalist, revealed in a book that a senior minister allegedly leaked out crucial information on the discussions at cabinet meetings to the CIA.

The ministry earlier rejected Dhar’s RTI application, arguing that the government was not obliged to provide information older than 20 years.

But Information Commissioner Annapurna Dixit countered the ministry’s logic and directed the Principal Information Officer to answer every question asked by Dhar.

Dhar sought photocopies of records relating to Hersh’s revelations in The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House. He also wanted some documents related to former Prime Minister Morarji Desai.

Arguing before the commission that the information was of great historical importance, Dhar claimed there was public interest involved in the disclosure, as it would help clear the air over the allegation.

Dixit also said in the order that the chief public information officer of the External Affairs Ministry would have to procure and provide information that are available with other ministries.

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

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