The Hindu : New Delhi News : `Top secret' now open to the public

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jan 12, 2005

New Delhi

New Delhi

`Top secret' now open to the public

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI, JAN. 11. A "top secret" thus far, the annual asset declaration of the elected representatives in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi is now open to public scrutiny, the Delhi Mayor, Asha Ram Verma, said here yesterday.

Mr. Verma said any citizen of the Capital could now have access to the annual declaration made by the Councillors about the "assets" owned by them and their family members including their income.

"This would bring transparency in the system and make the elected representatives more accountable to the people," he said. Under the Delhi Municipal Corporation Act, 1953, a Councillor could be disqualified from the MCD House membership, if it is proved that the information provided by him was false. This provision of the DMC Act could not be used so far as the asset declaration was declared "top secret" and was ruled to be beyond the purview of the Right to Information Act. The latest decision taken by the Delhi Mayor, which was taken last month but was made known by Mr. Verma only today, has been taken after the "intervention" of the Delhi Lieutenant-Governor, B. L. Joshi, and obtaining legal opinion from the Attorney General of India, Milon Banerjee. In an effort to bring in transparency in the MCD, Mr. Joshi, soon after he took the oath as Delhi's Lieutenant-Governor, had convened a meeting with top leaders of the civic body on the issue of making these documents public. He is understood to have made such a move after three Councillors of the ruling Congress were caught "red handed" by the CBI accepting bribe. Among the Councillors also included the Deputy Chairman of the Standing Committee, Ashok Jain.

Highly placed MCD sources said, Mr. Joshi asked legal opinion after the senior leaders showed their reluctance in making the documents public fearing that it might expose many of them because of the glaring difference in the declaration and the properties actually possessed by them. At one point in time, Mr. Joshi had even warned the MCD leaders that he would investigate the authenticity of the declaration, if they continued with their stand that it was a top secret document.

The Attorney General in his opinion is understood to have said that these were not to be kept secret, as the assets of Members of Parliament and MLAs were made public at the time of election. Mr. Banerjee is believed to have said that the annual assets of the elected representatives could not be hidden from the public and even the Mayor had no powers to prevent people from assessing these documents. However, it is up to the Mayor to decide how to make it available to the public.

Following legal opinion, the Law Department of the MCD suggested an amendment in the DMC Act specifically making such a provision. The Municipal Commissioner, Rakesh Mehta, is believed to have opined, following legal opinion, that these documents could be laid at the table of the House every year. As per the DMC Act, it is mandatory for every Councillor to give a declaration of their movable and immovable properties before April 30 to the Mayor.

Insiders in the Mayor Office said under such circumstances, Mr. Verma had no other option but to give a ruling in favour of making the declaration public.

Notably, Mr. Verma, like his predecessors Ashok K. Jain and Jaishree Panwar, had refused permission to several applications requesting a copy of the asset declaration made by the Councillors. Shanti Desai was the only Mayor to have given permission to a few applicants to view these documents, officials said.

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