New Delhi: the Central Information Commission (CIC) has asked the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) to reveal the draft of the controversial joint statement of the Indian and Pakistani prime ministers issued in Sharm el-Sheikh last year.

In an order dated January 4, Annapurna Dixit, an Information Commissioner with the CIC ruled that S.C. Agrawal, a Delhi-based RTI activist, be allowed inspection of files related to the draft of the joint statement.

The recent decision of the CIC bringing the office of the Chief Justice of India within the RTI Act was also the result of Agrawal’s RTI application.

On July 24, 2009, he filed an RTI application in the MEA demanding a copy of the statement, files noting on its drafting and names of the government officers who drafted the statement.

Names of persons, who accompanied Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit in the Egyptian city were also sought.

In its reply, the MEA provided the copy of the statement and the names of members of the Indian team. It, however, did not give the names of officials who drafted the proposal and said that there were no file notes in its records.

The statement, containing a controversial reference to Balochistan, was issued  following talks between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistani counterpart Yusuf Raza Gilani on the sidelines of the summit in July.

Then foreign secretary Shivshankar Menon had said that “bad drafting” might be a reason behind the controversial statement.