MEA Doesn’t Answer RTI Query on Nirav Modi’s Travel Citing Privacy

An RTI was reportedly filed seeking information on Nirav Modi’s passport, the route he took to flee India, etc.

The Ministry of External Affairs has not provided a sufficient response to a Right to Information (RTI) query filed in June, seeking to know the information pertaining to the travels of Nirav Modi, citing the ‘privacy’ of the diamantaire accused in the PNB scam.

The Wire reported that the RTI request, which carried multiple questions looking for explanations about Modi’s travel across various countries, did not bear much fruit as the MEA refused to share information stating that the RTI query goes against Modi’s privacy.

Following were the questions asked in the RTI query, as mentioned in this article by The Wire:

1. Did the MEA know Nirav Modi’s passport number?
2. What was the date of suspension of Modi’s passport?
3. Did Nirav Modi hold multiple passports?
4. If Nirav Modi held multiple passports, what are the details of his multiple passport booklets?
5. What was the route that Nirav Modi travelled to flee India?
6. Can an Indian passport be used to trace a person’s route and whether the MEA has used this method?
7. Is the MEA aware of Nirav Modi’s location in June?

According to The Wire, it was only the first question that elicited a response, with the MEA stating that it has knowledge of the passport number of Modi’s passport.

Regarding the various other questions, the MEA was quoted by the news portal as saying:

The desired information in the above-mentioned points cannot be provided to applicant keeping it as an exemption under Section 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act 2005. 

MEA

The section of RTI Act which the MEA refers to states the following:

”Notwithstanding anything contained in this act , there shall be no obligation to give any citizen information which relates to personal information the disclosure of which has no relationship to any public activity or interest , or which would cause unwarranted invasion of the privacy of the individual unless the Central Public Information officer or the State Public Information Officer or the appellate authority , as the case may be , is satisfied that the larger public interest justifies the disclosure of such information.”

The article observes that not all the questions in the RTI query sought details of the travel document. Moreover, while noting that this was not the first instance of a government agency not answering an RTI query sufficiently in the case of Nirav Modi, the article goes on to point out that some of the information regarding some of such queries were already in the public domain.

Nirav Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi are wanted in the Rs 13,000 crore PNB fraud case and have been absconding since the first week of January.

(With inputs from The Wire.)