2006 Mumbai train blasts: Delhi High Court notice to MHA on plea by death row convict seeking details of probe officers

The Delhi High Court has sought replies from the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and Department of Personnel and Training (DOPT) on a plea filed by one of the convicts in the 2006 Mumbai train blasts case seeking UPSC Forms and several other documents of 12 IPS Officers who were part of the investigation into the blasts (Ehtesham Qutubuddin Siddique v CPIO, DOPT)..Justice Rekha Palli heard the matter on Wednesday and issued notice to the Central government directing it to respond within six weeks. The case will be heard again on March 2.The convict, Ehtesham Qutubuddin Siddique, had been awarded death sentence by a special court in 2015 for his involvement in the blasts that ripped the local trains in Mumbai killing 189 people and injuring over 800. He is lodged in the Nagpur Central Jail while his appeal is pending before the Bombay High Court.In his petition filed through advocate Arpit Bhargava, Siddique has alleged that he was framed in the blasts as evidence was fabricated by the officers to seek promotion. He contended that his allegation stands substantiated by the news reports in 2017 which said that the members of Indian Mujahideen were involved in the blasts.“On 25.02.2017, Indian Express newspaper published a report on how innocent persons were falsely implicated in 7/11 bomb blast case, when after Ahmedabad Bomb Blast, Mumbai Crime Branch (DCB-CID) arrested various persons alleged to be members of the Indian Mujahideen, in an email case which was sent before such blast… Subsequently, they were arrested by OCTOPUS Police Station in connection with Hyderabad Blast 2007. After investigation, OCTOPUS Police Station prepared a dossier and sent the same to all sister organizations in the country and sent the said dossier to the Ministry of Home Affairs as well,” the petition said..The petition further alleged that “certain IPS officers had supervised the investigation of the 7/11 blast case and thus, they were directly or indirectly involved in fabrication of evidence and consequent false implication of innocent persons in the 7/11 blast case like petitioner. Not only this, some IAS officers had accorded sanction of prosecution without applying their mind and merely signed on template sanction orders. The same was done either for seeking promotion or awards/medals or haste to solve the cases of bomb blast or other considerations.”Siddique told the court that he had filed applications under the Right to Information Act (RTI Act) in October 2018 seeking details of the officers involved. However, the government denied the same citing Section 8(1)(d) of the Act terming it third party information. He then approached the First Appellate Authority (FAA) but even the FAA failed to act in the prescribed time. He then approached the Central Information Commission (CIC) which referred the case to a larger bench. In November 2019 the larger bench dismissed the appeal upholding the stand taken by the government.Siddique has now argued that the information he is seeking is related to public activity by public servants and their alleged wrongdoing and does not violate their right to privacy. “Moreover, the information sought for pertains to events/matters that occurred / happened more than 20 years back. It is thus, the right of Petitioner to know the qualifications of public servants and their public activities, being highly aggrieved by the aforesaid acts,” the petitioner submitted.The petition, therefore, sought quashing of the order passed by the larger bench of the CIC and a direction to the DOPT and MHA to provide him all the information.