Dr Raja Muzaffar Bhat
Jammu & Kashmir Right to Information Act completes 7 years of its enactment today . It was on March 20th 2009 when Jammu & Kashmir Assembly passed a new version of Right to Information Act (RTI) thus repealing erstwhile J&K RTI Act 2004 which was enacted during PDP – Congress Government in 2004. As RTI Act 2005 (Central RTI Act) was not extended to J&K due to constitutional reasons, there was an urgent demand from Civil Society , NGO’s and people at large for having a strong RTI law in the state of Jammu & Kashmir because J&K RTI Act 2004 was comparatively a weak legislation. On the other hand it was a great achievement of the then PDP- Congress coalition Government for enacting an RTI law in state at a time when no such law existed at national level. Myself along with several campaigners from different areas of state became active right from 2005 onwards under the banner of Jammu & Kashmir RTI Movement. In Jammu also noted activists / public spirited citizens like Balvinder Singh and Raman Sharma also became active around 2008 under the banner of Sangharsh RTI Movement. Due to the collective efforts we were successful in persuading the Government to enact J&K RTI Act 2009. Prominent persons like Wajahat Habibullah , Aruna Roy , Arvind Kejriwal , Maja Daruwala, Venkatesh Nayak , Paul Laporte (Chaicago USA), Khursheed Ganai played a great role during enactment of J&K RTI Act 2009.
State Information Commission (SIC) :
State Information Commission (SIC) was constituted under the provisions of J&K RTI Act 2009. For almost two years the SIC was without any Information Commissioner. The SIC under J&K RTI Act 2009 is supposed to have one State Chief Information Commissioner (CIC) and two Information Commissioners . After the enactment of J&K RTI Act on March 20th 2009, the selection committee consisting of the then Chief Minister Omar Abdullah , Leader of Single largest party Mehbooba Mufti and Deputy Chief Minister Tara Chand recommended Ghulam Rasool Sufi for the post of State Chief Information Commissioner (CIC). Under J&K RTI Act 2009 State Chief Information Commissioner (CIC) is equivalent to the rank of Election Commissioner of India and two other Commissioners enjoy status of a Chief Secretary. The selection committee could not make a consensus on the appointment of CIC and other Commissioners for nearly 2 years and finally on 28.2.2011 G R Sufi an Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer was appointed State Chief Information Commissioner (CIC) . G R Sufi recently retired from the post of State CIC after serving in the Commission for 5 years. Prof (Dr) S K Sharma former Professor law Jammu University and Nazir Ahmad former Chief Engineer PWD were appointed as Information Commissioners on 24.10.2011 and 18.11.2011 respectively. As Dr S K Sharma completed 65 years of his age he retired from the post of Information Commissioner by the end of October 2015. With the retirement of Prof Sharma the workload on G R Sufi and Nazir Ahmad increased to a great extent . As CIC G R Sufi also retired last month , all the cases of appeals and complaints are to be decided by the Nazir Ahmad now who is the only Commissioner left in State Information Commission.
Govt didn’t cooperate with SIC :
State Information Commission (SIC) tried its best to implement and interpret J&K RTI Act 2009 , but this Commission faced lot of challenges in past and still it continues to suffer. It is matter of serious concern that Secretary of State Information Commission (SIC) was prematurely transferred in October last year and till date Government hasn’t found a suitable officer to be posted as Secretary. From 2009 till date not a single Secretary has completed 2 years term in State Information Commission (SIC). Secretary’s who are posted in SIC consider it as an unimportant and useless posting. The Government hardly cooperates with functioning of SIC. In August 2012 J&K RTI Rules 2010 were repealed at the behest of the then Chief Secretary Madhav Lal who due to his personal ego mislead Government about J&K RTI Rules not being at par with Central RTI Rules. Pertinent to mention that Madhav Lal was summoned by State Chief Information Commissioner (CIC) G R Sufi in the Commission as Government had failed to adhere to several important provisions of J&K RTI Act 2009. The RTI rules of 2012 curtailed the powers of State Information Commission (SIC). The successive Government’s have prematurely transferred Secretaries of State Information Commission (SIC). The Chief Information Commissioner (CIC) used to be consulted prior to posting or transfer of Secretary or any other staff members of Information Commission , but after the J&K RTI Rules 2010 , the Government now hardly consults the CIC over these issues
Training of PIO’s
I won’t blame Public Information Officers (PIOs) for not adhering to the provisions of J&K RTI Act 2009. The Government officers are seldom familiar with RTI Act and it is the failure of Government who haven’t trained them. Under section 23 of J&K RTI Act 2009, Govt is supposed to create awareness among masses and to train the Govt officials. Even if some PIOs who got some basic training on RTI some time back , majority of them are not designated PIOs as on date, because most of them got promoted or have retired from Government service. For instance a KAS officer who was posted as BDO in some block few years back used to be the designated PIO as well in his office . Many of these BDO’s are promoted as Assistant Commissioner Development (ACD) and they are no more are PIOs now.
Conclusion :
During last 7 years of enactment of RTI Act in J&K there are many success stories wherein people have been benefitted through this legislation. Today ordinary people can question the Government authorities which wasn’t possible earlier . Government has indeed failed to create awareness about this act , but we must be optimistic and should not only blame the Government agencies . NGO’s , Civil Society groups should come forward and work for creating awareness about Right to Information Act (RTI). If NGO’s can work in Education , Environment and other development sectors , why cannot they work for good governance , RTI and other similar issues.
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