Should the video footage of religious procession be disclosed?
21 Nov, 2013Altaf Chichodara had filed an application under the Right to Information (RTI) Act with the Rajkot city police seeking information about police actions and police videography footage of a religious procession. He claimed that the participants of the religious procession used swords and other lethal instruments and which was a breach of a police notification and therefore, he informed police control room about it. Later, he sought the details of the action taken and footage captured by the city police using RTI.
As the public information officer (PIO) did not provide any information, he filed an appeal, wherein the First Appellate Authority held that the information sought under RTI application is a 'secret' and cannot be disclosed. The matter came up before the Gujarat State Information Commission (SIC) as a second appeal which has decined to provide the information.
The chief information commissioner D Rajagopalan has upheld the decision by the first appeal authority (Rajkot police) observing that “It seems that if the information sought by RTI applicant is disclosed, the peace and harmony in the area may be disturbed and therefore the application is disposed of.”