Senate committee reviews Right to Information Bill

 Babar seeks definition of national security, secret 

ISLAMABAD: PPP Senator and Chairman Senate Select Committee Farhatullah Babar said Wednesday it should be defined that what exactly was national security and secret.

He said this while chairing a meeting of the committee to review the Right to Information (RTI) Bill. He contended that in the bill, it was not going to be asked, where were the tanks and cannons deployed but it should be known from where the defence equipment procured.

Babar continued people should know how many tanks were purchased, from where and what was the cost of it and insisted there would be no threat to the national security by seeking answer to these questions.

“It is time to determine and define what is the state secret and national security. The military was asked was there any inquiry conducted into Kargil battle? The reply came, it is a secret. It was asked under which law ISI functions, it was replied that it is a secret. When asked do the military men submit the details of their assets to the GHQs, the reply came, it is sensitive, secret and a matter of national security,” Babar said.

He maintained that even now, the term classified was to be inserted in the proposed piece of legislation, then the objective of this initiative would be neutralised and even a section officer would write the word ‘secret’ in reply to a query about ordinary matter.

“We shall have to decide what is the state secret? Who is the enemy's agent?” Senator Babar contended.

Though the committee had agreement on seven points of the proposed bill, but no headway could be made on matters relating to security and defence.

Former information minister Senator Pervaiz Rashid said that which air bases were given to whom, the people should know and how were our relations with which country, should also be known to all and sundry.

State Minister for Information and Broadcasting Marriyum Aurangzeb told the committee that the government wanted to table the bill as early as possible.

She said that the related laws of the US, UK, India and Bangladesh were studied prior to drafting the bill. She said that the provinces could not provide information about security, defence and international issues. 

It was decided that defence and security portion of the bill would be discussed next week. Senator Hidayat Ullah from Fata said that once adopted, the bill should be applied in Fata as well.