“ Justice Srikrishna Committee” Chapter 8
The whole of India is now interested in knowing as to how the members of the Committee called the “ Justice Srikrishna Committee” also referred to as the SKC, conducted themselves. Appointed by the union home ministry to look into the terms of reference suggested by it to examine the demand for forming the Telangana State the SKC was constituted by issuing a notification in the gazette. On the floor of the Parliament, it was stated that about Rs. 20 crores was spent upon it. The committee submitted a Report on 30th December, 2010 containing Nine Chapters. However, Chapter VIII was supposed to be treated as confidential as a Secret “ NOTE” was made in it pertaining to certain sensitive issues like Law & Order etcetera. The contents enumerated in this Chapter VIII are also referred to by the Committee in its report as “ the Note”. The said Note which was handed over to the Union Home Minister of India in a sealed cover, was directed to be kept as secret by the committee itself. This is evident from the fact that, on every page of it, the word “ secret” is written. Though, the single bench of the AP High Court ordered that the so- called VIII Chapter of the SKC that is kept as SECRET be made public the union government preferred a stay on its release by filing a Writ Appeal before the division bench of the AP High Court. While it appears that there is not much harmful content left in the SECRET CHAPTER that is NOT already mentioned in many paras of the Judgment delivered by Hon’ble Justice L Narasimha Reddy, citing reasons for making the contents public the union government is deliberately not making it public for the reasons best known to it.
On the other hand there are many who seem to possess the copy of the alleged SECRET NOTE pertaining to the Chapter VIII of the Srikrishna Committee Report. It is also said that the real Chapter VIII was in fact running into 78 pages and not 21 plus three. There is speculation rife among those who were closely associated with the members of the Committee and now said to be deriving vicarious pleasure seeing how the matter is being dealt in the courts. There are some who are alleging that the courts were blatantly misled as they were not provided the complete report and many mischievous suggestions that are said to form the bulk of the Chapter VIII of the Report are hidden as only the abridged version has been presented for perusal by the Hon’ble Judges as no proof can exist as to what was indeed submitted to the union government by the Committee. It is only on account of statement that a Secret Note was given in a sealed cover to the union minister by the committee that formed the basis to seek that content. Therefore, what exactly is there is bound to remain a mystery considering the way this government has been functioning. In this context, several fundamental questions arise for consideration. The judgment delivered by the single judge opined that ….. “ the very fact that the deliberations and proceedings before the Committee were public in nature and that even according to the committee, the contents of the note were taken into account, while discussing various options in Chapter- IX, and that a specific reference was made to the note at different places of the report is prima facie a ground to make it available to the political parties and other stakeholders”. The judge also opined that “ after a great deal of study, an in- depth pondering over, and after weighing the factors, such as propriety, this Court opinions not as matter of choice, that the objective in preparing a separate note and delivering it to the respondent was more, an effort to persuade the Union of India to desist from showing any inclination towards Option No. 5, i. e. formation of Telangana State. In a way, it can be said that, whatever positive was said in support of option No. 5, was just neutralized, through the note, even at the cost of several contradictions”. Now it emerges quite clearly that the SKC hesitated to state in its report, what it exactly intended to, particularly about its disinclination to recommend the formation of a separate State of Telangana, though it had the opportunity to express any view of its choice
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