The Special Cell’s encounter atL-18, Batla House left two serial blasts suspects — Mohammed Atif Amin and Sajid — and Inspector Mohan Chand Sharma dead.

A division bench of Chief Information Commissioner Wajahat Habibullah and Information Commissioner Shailesh Gandhi today gave the Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime) 10 days to part with the FIR (number 208/08) lodged by Special Cell on the encounter, and the postmortem reports of Sharma and the two suspects.

The Crime Branch is probing the encounter.

The Commission, which had called for the documents for closed-doors inspection on March 5, though, agreed to the police suggestion that names of officers who were part of the encounter, and that of doctors from AIIMS who conducted the autopsies, should be deleted from copies provided to RTI applicant Prashant Bhushan. A Supreme Court lawyer, Bhushan is representing Zia-ur-Rehman, one of the suspects of the serial blasts last September.

Zia is son of the caretaker of the L-18 flat, where the suspected militants had allegedly taken shelter before and after the serial blasts in Delhi on September 13, 2008.

“In the FIR, we found names of the investigating team led by S-I Mohan Chand Sharma described together with the team that visited Batla House at 11 am on the day of encounter,” the Bench observed. It said the FIR also mentions the name of the Special Cell officer who lodged it, while the postmortem reports name AIIMS doctors who conducted the autopsy.

“We readily agree that disclosure of this information could expose all these persons to uncalled for pressure, which could act as a major impediment in the investigation,” the Bench observed. The name of the officer who filed the FIR would also be kept under wraps, it ruled.

Bhushan had applied to the Special Cell for the documents last October.

DCP (Crime and Railways), to whom the request was forwarded, refused access on the ground that the lawyer could not seek the reports as his client, Rahman, was neither an “accused nor complainant” in the FIR. Rahman is named an accused in the blasts cases filed separately.

The police also reasoned that disclosing the reports would hamper the probe into the blasts. “These documents have a bearing upon terrorist crime perpetrated across the country, including Jaipur, Ahmedabad, and Mumbai. Extra caution is therefore advised in dealing with matters concerning this case,” Satyendra Garg, Additional CP (Crime) had submitted before the CIC.

But Habibullah said: “It’s an oft-repeated comment by the police and investigating agencies that they can’t part with documents under RTI when the investigation is still on. But CIC takes a different view — we consistently rule that though investigation is underway, the probe agency is bound to reveal documents that don’t impede the probe. This case is an example of our stand.”