With the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) and two Union ministries unable to locate crucial probe documents in the multi-billion dollar Iraqi oil-for-food scam since the past two years, that led to the ouster of Natwar Singh from the Government, the Central Information Commission has made the rare choice of asking the Enforcement Directorate (ED), an authority exempted under the Right to Information Act, to confirm if it has copies of the papers.

The ED is one of the statutory authorities listed in the Second Schedule of the RTI, 2005, which enjoys immunity from disclosure of information.

Chief Information Commissioner Wajahat Habibullah recently ordered the ED to file a report within seven days to confirm if it had the probe report filed by Special Envoy Virendra Dayal on the role of a major private entity as a “non-contractual beneficiary” which “lifted five times more oil than shown to have been lifted by the Congress and Natwar Singh combined” by paying “illegal surcharge”.

Habibullah sought the ED’s response if the latter held probe documents prepared by UN Investigator Paul Volcker on alleged kickbacks received by various entities in the scam. The ED is currently investigating the scam’s money trail to India. The Commission held that “even in regard to an organisation included in the Second Schedule, information pertaining to allegations of corruption and human rights violation is not excluded”.

The decision came on an appeal filed by a Bangalore resident, Arun Agrawal, whose RTI request for copies of the scam reports was passed to and fro among the PMO, the Finance Ministry’s Revenue Department and the Foreign Ministry since the past two years.