NEW DELHI: Indian air force (IAF) filed a petition in Delhi’s high court on Wednesday challenging a direction from the Central Information Commission (CIC) to provide information on Returns from special flights (SRF) -II, saying it relates to the details of the prime minister security apparatus and cannot be provided.
The IAF’s allegation has stated that the “information requested includes details relating to the entire entourage, names of the personnel of the Special Protection Group (SPG) accompanying the Prime Minister of India in foreign tours for your personal securityand the same, if revealed, can potentially affect the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security, the strategic, scientific or economic interests of the State. ”
The petition, filed through central government main panel attorney Rahul Sharma and advocate CK Bhatt, is on appeal against the CIC’s July 8 order to the IAF to provide certified copies of available and relevant special flight returns. ll to RTI Aspiring Commodore (retired) Lokesh K Batra.
Batra had requested certified copies of SRF-I and SRF-II in respect of each foreign visit by former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as well as Prime Minister Narendera Modi from April 2013 onwards.
The IAF, in its plea, alleges that the CIC “has not appreciated and considered that the information requested by the defendant (Batra) from the petitioner (Air Force) cannot be disclosed and the defendant’s request to search for it should not have been allowed as the information requested is extremely sensitive in nature … ”
The petition maintains that the requested copies of the SRF refer to “official records of the functioning and functioning of the security apparatus of the Prime Minister of India which cannot be made public for security reasons.”
The matter is likely to go to a hearing on Friday.
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