Re: [IAC#RG] [NCPRI] Locating the Jammu and Kashmir Instrument of Accession after 69 years

Dear Shri Siddhartha Varadarajan

This is to confirm / record that we discussed, over respective mobile phones,  at 12:16 noon today that you do not wish to discuss Venkatesh Nayak's purported Instruments of Accession uploaded to your website and that I should not contact you further regarding the same.

I reiterate that the provenance of the documents uploaded to THEWIRE.IN
a) seem to be dubious,
b) do not tally with the text published by the J&K Law Department for a very long time now, and
c) cannot be genuine if the National Archive claims Copyright in them.

If you are any kind of responsible journalist / editor you will address my issues instead of evading them and passing off copies as originals.

sincerely

Sarbajit Roy

National Convenor

INDIA AGAINST CORRUPTION,

B-59 Defence Colony

New Delhi 110024

On Fri, Oct 28, 2016 at 10:46 AM, Siddharth Varadarajan <sv@thewire.in> wrote:

Please unsubscribe me from this rubbish

On Friday 28 October 2016, Sarbajit Roy <sroy.mb@gmail.com> wrote:

Dear Shri Dalvi ji

Pranam

I am very surprised that such an experienced pracharak like yourself has not seen the trap of these fully foreign financed rascals.

Venkatesh Nayak is one of those anti-national people who sing for their supper (in this case daily "breakfast", "tiffin",  "lunch" and "dinner") from  Congress and Modi sarkar. He is now being fully used by Dr. Jitendra Singh (BJP MoS in DoPT) in the CIA's great game plan to turn LoC into de-jure international border. In return Nayak trains DopT's officers - 6,000 of them by his own last count. Nayak is also among those who defended the Navy War Room accused.

These wily people (eg. ex-Justice Ruma Pal, Wajahat Habibullah etc. on BoG of CHRI - a harami Institution master-minded by an ex-Pakistani diplomat Syed Sharfudin) have devised a plan that India will approach the International Court of Justice and claim the whole of J&K. They will soon start circulating theories that India has an exceptinally strong case and we are sure to win there - which is pure bullshit.

To this end they have arranged, with the connivance of  another wily person (Kiren Rijju/MoS-MHA), that a delberately suspicious IoA document is circulated in public domain through their communist networks like Siddharth Varadarajan and Prannoy Roy.

This document they have put out through can never be proved as genuine in any court of law. It is full of holes and is designed to provoke China over "Tibbet".

If they succeed then India will lose Kashmir and China shall have it. Since India does not have a single dependable friend left on the UNSC, we shall probably be asked to conduct a referendum there (as Gandhi and Nehru manipulated) and India shall have to vacate J&K eventually since the remaining ethically cleansed Kashmiris hate us.

Jai Hind

Sarbajit

On Thu, Oct 27, 2016 at 10:58 PM, Rajinder Dalvi <rajinder.dalvi@gmail.com> wrote:

Venkatesh

What a deed you did to extract all these documents proving Jammu and Kashmir is 100% a part of India.

Surely you are on ISI hit list for this surgical strike and must pray for your continued well being and safety.

RP Dalvi

नगर प्रचार प्रमुख
अखिल भारतीय बहुजन रक्षा दल
पुणे  / अहमदनगर

From: Venkatesh Nayak <nayak.venkatesh@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 27 Oct 2016 11:29:18 +0530
Subject: Locating the Jammu and Kashmir Instrument of Accession after 69 years
To: "ncpriworkingcommittee@googlegroups.com"
<ncpriworkingcommittee@googlegroups.com>, "ncpri@googlegroups.com"
<ncpri@googlegroups.com>, rtitrainers <rtitrainers@googlegroups.com>,
odishasoochanaadhikarabhiyan
<odishasoochanaadhikarabhiyan@googlegroups.com>, KRIA KATTE
<kriakatte@gmail.com>, "IndianBureaucracy.com"
<info@indianbureaucracy.com>

Dear all,
26-27 October, 2016 mark the commencement of the 70th anniversary of the
accession of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) to India. On account of the troubled
times that J&K is passing through since July, there is little space for
celebrating this event, but a sober commemoration of this historic moment,
may not be out of place. The Instrument of Accession (IoA) signed by
Maharaja Hari Singh has become the object of a never-ending controversy,
unlike accession instruments signed by other princely States.

*Does it really exist or not?* *Yes, the J&K IoA exists for real, safe and
well preserved in the collection of the National Archives. I have elected
to place in the public domain, a copy of the J&K IoA obtained legitimately
from the National Archives, for the purpose of facilitating informed debate
amongst those interested in the subject.* I have also placed in the public
domain copies of the IoAs of* Mysore, Manipur, Tehri Garhwal *and *Udaipur*
obtained from the National Archives so that readers may compare them with
the J&K IoA for ascertaining its contents. These documents may be accessed
on *The Wire
<http://thewire.in/76079/public-first-time-jammu-kashmirs-instrument-accession-india/>
*(all
docs) and *NDTV
<http://www.ndtv.com/india-news/jammu-and-kashmirs-document-of-accession-in-public-domain-at-last-1494726>*
(J&K IoA only)

*No, the J&K IoA was not signed by the Late Shaikh Muhammad Abdullah*, and
for a very legitimate reason. The J&K media reported an RTI intervention
<http://kashmirreader.com/2016/09/03/no-signature-of-sheikh-abdullah-on-instrument-of-accession/>
on this issue recently. The Rulers of Princely States signed IoAs with the
Dominion of India in 1947 under *The India (Provisional Constitution)
Order, 1947 *read with the *Indian Independence Act, 1947* and *The
Government of India Act, 1935 *(1st 3 attachments). Under the relevant
provisions of these laws, only the Ruler of a Princely State could sign an
IoA. There was no provision for delegation of this authority to any other
person. So in my humble opinion, even if he wanted to so do, Maharaja Hari
Singh could not have delegated his authority to anybody else as has been
reported in some publications on this subject. An IoA would be invalid if
anybody other than the Ruler of the concerned State were to sign it.

*Is the J&K IoA held by the National Archives, a genuine document?* *What
can we make of an instance of overwriting in this IoA (some writers have
used this argument to refute the genuineness of the document)? Is the J&K
IoA a unique document as compared to IoAs signed by other Rules of Princely
States? How was the then Constituent Assembly also acting as the
Legislature for the Dominion of India informed about J&K's accession, in
1947? *

I have tried to clarify these matters in an article. *The Wire
<http://thewire.in/> *has published my article and the IoAs and other
historical records that I accessed recently from the National Archives and
Parliament's Library. I invite readers to read the article on The Wire at:
http://thewire.in/76079/public-first-time-jammu-kashmirs
-instrument-accession-india/. *NDTV <http://www.ndtv.com/>* did a breaking
news story on this subject in the evening of the 26th of October. Their
news report may be accessed at: http://www.ndtv.com/india-
news/jammu-and-kashmirs-document-of-accession-in-public-
domain-at-last-1494726

*The limited objective of my article
<http://thewire.in/76079/public-first-time-jammu-kashmirs-instrument-accession-india/>
is to place legitimately obtained true-to-the original images of the J&K
IoA along with other comparable and supporting documents, in order to
encourage informed debate across the country and elsewhere on this subject.*


*The RTI Interventions*
As always, this process of uncovering the J&K IoA began with an RTI
application in April 2016. In 1947, the newly established Ministry of
States led the efforts to integrate the princely States into India, under
the leadership of the then Deputy Prime Minister, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel
and the stewardship of its Secretary, Shri V. P. Menon. Today it is
subsumed under the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA). So I filed an RTI
application with the MHA in April, 2016. After waiting for a reply for more
than a month, I filed a first appeal. Then MHA transferred the appeal to
the National Archives in a cryptic letter (see 1st attachment). The
National Archives replied promptly but cited a decision of the Central
Information Commission in its favour to refuse access to the archived
records under the RTI Act. However, they invited me to access the documents
under the *Public Records Act, 1993
<http://nationalarchives.nic.in/writereaddata/html_en_files/html/Public_Records93.html>.
*This
decision is hugely problematic and runs contrary to the principle
recognised by High Courts and larger benches of the CIC about access to
copies of official records under the RTI Act and other laws. I will write
about this issue later.

However, obtaining access to the IoA was more important, so the challenge
to the stand taken by the National Archives was postponed. In September,
they granted me access to the J&K IoA and four others. I have also attached
proof of requisitioning the IoAs at the Archives as well as payment made to
get copies of the IoAs (2nd attachment). Under the terms of granting copies
of archived records, I can only publish copies of these IoAs but cannot
transfer them to others. So I have not attached the copies of the IoAs to
this mail. Readers may please bear with me and access them on *The Wir
<http://thewire.in/76079/public-first-time-jammu-kashmirs-instrument-accession-india/>e*
where
my article is published. However a copy of the relevant record of debates
from the CA-L is attached for readers' use (3rd attachment). There is no
bar on the circulation of these documents.

*Copyright vis-à-vis duplicates of these archived records is claimed by the
National Archives. I request readers to access them from the National
Archives using the file numbers mentioned in the footnotes to my article
<http://thewire.in/76079/public-first-time-jammu-kashmirs-instrument-accession-india/>.*


In between, after discovering in *The India (Provisional Constitution)
Order, 1947 *that the IoAs were required to be tabled in the then
Constituent Assembly-Legislative (CA-L), when it functioned as the Dominion
Legislature, I filed a second RTI application with the Secretariat of the
Lok Sabha (1st attachment). I have not received any reply from them till
date. Later I visited the Parliament Library to access the record of
debates of the CA-L of the date on which the IoAs were tabled in the House.
The library staff told me that papers laid on the table of CA-L were not
available with them. Indeed the issue of the missing of papers laid before
the CA-L was raised in 1947 itself. The Government requested members of the
CA-L not to pick up the papers laid before the House for personal use, but
inspect them and allow for them to be sent to the library. Thankfully, the
IoAs do not seem to have gone missing. They are preserved in the National
Archives. The CA-L debates testify to the formal announcement that the
Government made in November 1947, about the accession of J&K as well as
more than a hundred other princely States to the Dominion of India.

I am grateful to Shri Husain Dalwai* MP* (Rajya Sabha) and members of his
secretarial staff for helping me access Parliament's library in order to
get copies of the relevant debates of the CA-L. I am also grateful to the
staff of National Archives for facilitating easy access to the IoAs and for
providing copies without undue delay.

*Please circulate this email widely.*

*In order to access our previous email alerts on RTI and related issues
please click on: **www.humanrightsinitiative.org/blog
<http://www.humanrightsinitiative.org/>**. If you do not wish to receive
these email alerts please send an email to this address indicating your
refusal.*

Thanks
*Venkatesh Nayak*
*Programme Coordinator*
*Access to Information Programme*
*Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative*
*#55A, 3rd Floor, Siddharth Chambers-1*
*Kalu Sarai, New Delhi- 110 016*
*Tel: +91-11-43180201 <%2B91-11-43180201>/ 43180215*
*Fax: +91-11-26864688 <%2B91-11-26864688>*
*Skype: venkatesh.nayak@skype.com <venkatesh.nayak@skype.com>  *
*Website: www.humanrightsinitiative.org
<http://www.humanrightsinitiative.org/>*

*"The people of this country have a right to know every public act,
everything, that is done in a public way, by their public functionaries.
They are entitled to know the particulars of every public transaction in
all its bearing": Justice K K Mathew, former Judge, Supreme Court of India,
(1975)*

*"**"Where a society has chosen to accept democracy as its credal faith, it
is elementary that the citizens ought to know what their government is
doing": Justice P N Bhagwati, former Chief Justice, Supreme Court of India,
(1981)*

*"Information is the currency that every citizen requires to participate in
the life and governance of society": **Justice A. P. Shah, former Chief
Justice, Delhi and Madras High Courts, (2010)*

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making, it is a burden, not a benefit."

           William Pollard quotes

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