Departments yet to index records, claims RTI activist

November 9, 2011

Mangalore, November 10: No government department in the district has fully indexed its records, Right to Information Activist Prakash Bhat said here on Wednesday.

He was delivering a talk on the Right to Information Act 2005 during a programme organised by Lions Club Cauvery, Mangalore, the District Coordinator of RTI and Issues and Concerns magazine. Mr. Bhat said that he had been fighting against officials in the Mangalore Tahsildarâ€™s office for the last two years on this issue and that the case was now pending in court.

Indexing of records as specified under Section 4 (1) (a) and (b) would make it easier for applicants to ask for specific information. They would also know what sort of information was available, he said. The deadline complete the indexing of records ended a long time ago, he said. After the records were indexed and a name and number assigned to each file, the records were also supposed to be updated every December.

He suggested that perhaps the delay was deliberate.

Under the same sections, all government departments were supposed to disclose certain information such as the names of Public Information Officers (PIOs), appellate authority, officers salaries, the assets of the departments, number of vehicles and the drivers, the number of vacant posts in the department, the bank account number of the department, and the funds granted by government and the expenditure of those funds.

Mr. Bhat also said that often officials claimed that records were lost, and although FIRs were registered after repeated directions from the courts, the police merely recorded that statements were recorded but the files could not be found. Recently, however, a law had been passed to penalise officials under whose tenure records had been lost.

Those with BPL cards could obtain information that was contained in paper sheets worth Rs. 100 for free and thereafter could inspect the information before they obtained copies, he said.

Corporation Bank general manager B.R. Bhat, J.K. Rao, IMM past president, among others, were present

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HC refuses to quash probe against Mangaluru WhatsApp admin over offensive posts

News Network

February 1,2026

Bengaluru: The Karnataka High Court has refused to quash an investigation against a WhatsApp group administrator accused of allowing the circulation of obscene and offensive images depicting Hindutva politicians and idols in 2021.

Justice M Nagaprasanna observed that, prima facie, the ingredients of the offence under Section 295A of the Indian Penal Code were made out. “The offence under Section 295A of the IPC is met to every word of its ingredient, albeit prima facie,” the judge said.

The petitioner, Sirajuddin, a resident of Belthangady taluk in Dakshina Kannada district, had challenged the FIR registered against him at the CEN (Cyber, Economics and Narcotics) police station, Mangaluru, for offences under Section 295A of the IPC and Section 67 of the Information Technology Act. Section 295A relates to punishment for deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage the religious feelings of any class of citizens.

According to the complaint filed by K Jayaraj Salian, also a resident of Belthangady taluk, he received a WhatsApp group link from an unknown source and was added to the group after accessing it. The group reportedly had six administrators and around 250 participants, where obscene and offensive images depicting Hindu deities and certain political figures were allegedly circulated repeatedly.

Sirajuddin was arrested in connection with the case and later released on bail on February 16, 2021. He argued before the court that he was being selectively targeted, while other administrators—including the creator of the group—were neither arrested nor investigated. He also contended that the Magistrate could not have taken cognisance of the offence under Section 295A without prior sanction under Section 196(1) of the CrPC.

Rejecting the argument, Justice Nagaprasanna held that prior sanction is required only at the stage of taking cognisance, and not at the stage of registration of the crime or during investigation.

The judge noted that the State had produced the entire investigation material before the court. “A perusal of the material reveals depictions of Hindu deities in an extraordinarily obscene, demeaning and profane manner. The content is such that its reproduction in a judicial order would itself be inappropriate,” the court said, adding that the material, on its face, had the tendency to outrage religious feelings and disturb communal harmony.

Observing that the case was still at the investigation stage, the court said it could not interdict the probe at this juncture. However, it expressed concern that the investigating officer appeared to have not proceeded uniformly against all administrators. The court clarified that if the investigation revealed the active involvement of any member in permitting the circulation of such content, they must also be proceeded against.

“At this investigative stage, any further observation by this Court would be unnecessary,” the order concluded.

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