The information regarding Cabinet papers, file notings, discussion notes, minutes and such other important policy records concerning the Government and rulers of former princely states was sought by Jaswant Singh, Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha.

In India, the privy purse was a grant given since 1947 to the rulers of the princely states as part of their terms of accession to the new republic, which was abolished in 1971.

The BJP leader had sought the information under the Right to Information (RTI) Act and the CIC had in its order last year directed the MHA to open for inspection the relevant files transferred to it by the NAI.

However, Jaswant Singh’s secretary, who was assigned the right to inspect the files as his representative, told the CIC that despite a year’s delay, the MHA could provide only two files which related to peripheral matters devoid of any policy implications and hence “irrelevant” for him. The CIC then summoned the officials concerned from the MHA and NAI to explain things.

While the MHA contended that it could find only two files relating to abolition of the privy purses, the NAI claimed that there were many volumes of the documents and a number of files were still with the ministry and were never sent to them for custody.

The MHA official had also carried with him two files during the recent CIC hearing but Singh’s representative maintained that he had already gone through them, which did not contain information on the substantive issues.

Irked by this, Chief Information Commissioner Wajahat Habibullah said, “It is distressing to note that documents of such important nature in the evolution of free India’s history that will be vital for any documentation of the history of the late 20th century are not traceable either in the MHA or in the premier repository of our country’s remembrance, the NAI.”

Pulling up both the public authorities, Habibullah further said it was all the “more alarming that there is no record of movement of these documents which could enable tracing of these and conservation”.

The Commission has now directed the MHA to look into every nook and corner of its offices and storerooms to trace the documents and the movement of the files, if any, so that they could be retrieved.

Officials responsible from both the departments have been summoned on June 28 “to compare notes and devise ways of ensuring recovery of the files in question and their proper conservation, and indeed inspection by the complainant”.