BHOPAL: In a significant development, the Madhya Pradesh State Information Commission has decided to provide a rape accused cop information about the rape survivor under the Right to Information Act (RTI) – after the information was denied to him twice in the past under the 2005 law.
The matter pertains to Mandla district, where a police officer was accused in 2017 of allegedly raping a woman. A case of rape was lodged at the Kotwali police station against the concerned cop on the complaint of the woman.
The alleged rape survivor in the complaint had alleged that the cop raped her for five months on the pretext of marriage, but then married another woman. In the complaint, the woman alleged that the cop raped her at a room in Mandla after calling her at the Mandla bus stand and later also forced her to have sexual relations with him in Satna district.
The rape accused cop was attached to district police lines and a departmental also initiated against him, besides the rape case registered against him, sources privy to the case revealed.
The cop, however, claimed that though there were talks to marry her, nothing like rape ever happened. But, since he married another woman, the alleged rape survivor levelled false allegations him, owing to which he had sought the information under RTI Act about the girl’s attendance from her college, which would make things crystal clear and help him get justice in the case.
In December 2018, the cop filed an application at the government college (where the alleged rape survivor studied), seeking a copy of the attendance register to know the actual details of her class attendance. The PIO at the college, however, denied information to the cop under the RTI Act, stating that the information cannot be furnished as it pertained to a third party and the third party in the matter (being the alleged rape survivor) refused to share the details.
The rape accused cop subsequently filed the first appeal before the appellate authority in January 2019, but failed to get the requisite information under the RTI Act.
He then moved a second appeal before the State Information Commission, which ordered on Monday, to provide him with the certified copy of the required information within 48 hours
In his order, the State Information Commissioner Rahul Singh mentioned, “It’s in the interest of justice to provide any such document, whose revelation could put a new light in a judicial case. Justice seems to be above the personal right of an individual in this case.”