The Wire: New Delhi: Tuesday, January 16, 2018.
The Central
Information Commission (CIC) has taken cognisance of how officials in the
culture ministry allowed a fraud of Rs 2.5 crore to be played on the exchequer
by first releasing the amount to a filmmaker despite him not having made the
promised film, and then allowing the file of the project to go “missing”.
Moreover, when the issue was brought into public domain by a Right to
Information activist, the Central Bureau of Investigation – which had filed a
chargesheet in the matter – did not even probe the role of the corrupt
officials in the matter.
In a recent
order, central information commission M. Sridhar Acharyulu issued a show cause
notice to Suman Bara, the chief public information officer of the culture
ministry, questioning why maximum penalty should not be imposed on him for not
providing the information on the case with the excuse that the file pertaining
to it was “missing”.
RTI
revealed fraud after 12 years
The appellant
V.R. Kamalapurkar exposed the fraud through an RTI application after nearly 12
years of its filing. He had sought to know the date of commencement of
centenary/commemoration cell for celebration of the 50th anniversary of the
Indian republic in or around 2001, budget allocated for the cell,
classification and number of programmes undertaken, etc.
In his
response, the CPIO had stated in November 2015 that efforts were being made to
trace the information from the old records of the Ministry of Culture and the
appellant would be informed accordingly and that the ministry had lent its
support to a film on ‘Bal Gangadhar Tilak’ by producer Vinay Dhumale. However,
as there was no response from the respondent authority – the ministry, in this
case – Kamalapurkar had approached this Commission.
It was
submitted before the CIC by Nirmala Goyal, deputy secretary in the ministry,
that the Commemoration Bureau was set up as a special cell under the Ministry
of Culture for organising the celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the
Indian republic, and its tenure was co-terminus with that of the commemoration
period. However, it continues to function till date for organising
commemoration-related activities of all the major contributors and philosophers
of the country.
‘Payment
of Rs 2.5 crore made without movie being made’
In his order,
Acharyulu noted that the official further stated that as part of the
commemorations in 2005, “the Ministry of Culture gave a contract worth Rs 2.5
crores to Mr. Vinay Dhumale to make a movie on Bal Gangadhar Tilak. The money
was transferred to Mr Vinay in two instalments. She said, however, the movie
was never made and there was no enquiry into the utility of the funds. She
further stated that the ministry was able to find out about this embezzlement
of money only after the RTI application was filed by the appellant in 2011.”
It was
further submitted by Arnab Aich, under secretary in the ministry, that the
matter was being investigated by the CBI and the final report was awaited. The
CIC recorded that Aich “further stated that the file containing the details of
the film project, sanctioning of the project and the officers involved in the
monetary transactions was not traceable in the record room of the erstwhile
Commemoration Bureau.”
Ministry
claims intensive search to recover file, CIC says no document to support claim
The
Commission further noted that the official submitted that “intensive search
operations were conducted in the ministry record rooms between 2013 and 2017
but to no avail. Hence, the file has been declared as missing.”
However, the
CIC said “the officers could not show any document reflecting their efforts, if
any. The representation of the officers led the Commission to understand that
the public authority has not made up any case against any officer or found
anybody responsible for last custody or the loss, not that they filed any FIR
regarding the missing file.”
Even scale
of fraud did not stir ministry into action
Considering
how huge sums of money were siphoned off, Acharyulu observed in his order that
“it is surprising that the ministry sanctioned Rs. 100 crores for celebration
of Golden Jubilee of Indian Republic and releases Rs. 2.5 crores to a person
for making a movie on Bal Gangadhar Tilak and simply ignores its responsibility
of following up.”
Lauding the
effort of the RTI applicant in exposing the fraud, he said, “it is to the
credit of RTI Act that this major lapse has been exposed still it remains a
tragedy that the ministry has lost entire record regarding this huge grant,
that too without any consequence. Besides being a criminal case of corruption,
this reflects a sad state of file keeping and inaction within the Ministry of
Culture.”
The
Commission further held that “key records of sanction and payment of Rs. 2.5
crores to Mr. Vinay Dhumale for production of movie on Bal Gangadhar Tilak is
missing and except for some oral statements by the CPIO and Deputy Secretary,
there is no record present of who held the files”.
In view of
the impending situation, the Commission has also directed the ministry to
initiate enquiry into the missing files and submit a report and information
about action taken in this regard within 60 days. It has demanded that that
information be provided to the appellant on the budget allocation for the
centenary celebrations and the list of programmes conducted under the
celebrations within 30 days.
CBI’s role
in entire episode not above board
In his order,
Acharyulu also directed the CBI, New Delhi to inform within 30 days the
Commission and the appellant about the time it would need to finalise the
investigation report and take necessary steps into the matter. It issued these
directions since even though the CBI has filed a chargesheet, it had not
provided Kamalapurkar a copy of the same.
A deputy
superintendent of police of CBI, K.S. Pathania, submitted that the agency had
“completed the investigation and found that Rs. 2.5 crore was misappropriated
in the name of producing a feature film on Late Bal Gangadhar Tilak in his
centenary celebrations and filed the chargesheet before the concerned Court in
Patiala House, Delhi.”
However, he
pleaded that the chargesheet is a secret document and cannot be shared either
with the appellant or with the department. Incidentally, as per deputy
secretary Nirmala Goyal’s submission, the agency had not shared a copy of the
chargesheet even with the ministry, which had lodged the first information
report.
Department
of Culture filed FIR but took no action against officials
Goyal also
submitted that the special cell for late Bal Gangadhar Tilak’s centenary
celebrations was wound up in 2004, and a new cell to celebrate various
centenaries was constituted in December 2006. She said the Department of
Establishment failed to furnish the names and designations of the
in-charge/custodians of the file along with the concerned authorities.
As for the
Department of Culture, Acharyulu noted in his order that “though they have
filed FIR against misappropriation, they have not initiated any legal action
against persons who caused missing of that file. The loss of such an important
file will have a serious impact on possibility of establishing the charge of
misappropriation.”
He also
observed that “the department of culture is in such a pathetic state that until
the appellant Shri V.R. Kamalapurkar complained, they did not know that entire
money granted on movie on Late Bal Gangadhar Tilak was swindled. It is
surprising to know why the department is not seriously probing/taking action
against the loss of the file since last 12 years.”
‘CD on
seven Tilak serial episodes was submitted to commit fraud’
On how the
fraud was committed, Goyal submitted that a compact disc of a “scratch movie”,
which appears to be an abridged version of seven episodes of a Delhi
Doordarshan serial on late Bal Gangadhar Tilak, was received by the department,
“which means the producer has played a fraud on the department by showing the
old TV serial as new movie”.
Holding that
there was a “huge public interest in this application”, the Commission directed
the ministry CPIO to also inform about the action taken on the missing file and
to furnish the certified copy of the chargesheet to the appellant within 15
days.
CBI claim
on chargesheet being a secret document is “illegal”
Finally, the
Commission held that the CBI claim that the chargesheet is a secret document is
“quite illegal and against tenets of open prosecution in criminal justice
system”.
“When
chargesheet forms the basis and beginning of public prosecution of accused, how
can it be secured as secret and how can it be denied to the complainant i.e.,
the department and to the appellant because of whose RTI the Rs. 2.5 crore
scandal has come out,” Acharyulu asked, while directing the CPIO of CBI to
provide a certified copy of the chargeesheet to the respondent authority and
also the appellant within 15 days.
During the
hearing in the matter earlier this month, Acharyulu also expressed surprise
that while the CBI DSP Pathania questioned the officers of the Ministry of
Culture about what they had done for 12 years to trace the file, the
investigating agency had itself also not probed the involvement of the
officials.
“The
Commission also recommends the CBI and the Ministry of Culture to probe into
the missing of the key file in the scandal,” the CIC ruled.
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