Declassify Shastri death papers: CIC

New Delhi, September 24

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The Central Information Commission (CIC) on Monday asked the Central Public Information Officers of the PMO, Ministries of External Affairs and Home to place all “so-called classified” papers before the PM and Home Minister to declassify documents relating to the death of former PM Lal Bahadur Shastri.

Disposing of a RTI application, the CIC said except a medical report nothing has been disclosed and the mystery was being allowed to persist and raised questions that need to be answered by the ministries concerned, in response to the RTI, family members of Lal Bahadur Shastri and people. Shastri died in Tashkent, then Soviet Russia on January 11, 1966.

Since the records were not classified under Official Secrets Act but by individual ministry, the CIC sought to know, which ministry did so; whether papers related to Shastri’s death were classified as top secret/secret/confidential; justification to invoke part of the RTI Act to deny; period for classification; status of any move by any ministry to consider declassification, and finally, using the doctrine of severability, portion of document classified could be blocked or deleted. — TNS