*Many deptts not submitting quarterly/annual returns
Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, June 4: Even seven years after the enactment of transparency law in Jammu and Kashmir, over 60 Public Authorities are reluctant to start suo-moto disclosure of information as mandated under the Jammu and Kashmir Right To Inform-ation Act. Moreover, majority of the First Appellate Authorities have yet not started discharging quasi-judicial obligations.
The Section 4 of the J&K Right to Information Act, 2009 has four sub-sections with sub-sections 1 (a) and (b) basically more important for ensuring dissemination of maximum information by the Public Authorities.
Taking measures for computerization and proper indexing of the records within a reasonable time and subject to availability of resources to facilitate access to records is necessary under Clause (a) of Sub-Section 1 of Section 4. However, Clause (b) of this sub-section makes it mandatory for all Public Authorities to disseminate information as per 17 manuals within 120 days of the commencement of the Act, which was enacted by the State Legislature in March 2009.
The disclosures under Section 4 (1) (b) include particulars of organization, functions and duties; the procedure followed in decision making process, including channels of supervision and accountability; the norms set for the discharge of the functions; the rules, regulations, instructions, manuals and records held by Public Authority or under its control or used by its employees for discharging the functions; the budget allocated to each of its agency indicating the particulars of the plans, proposed expenditures and reports on disbursement etc.
However, despite lapse of several years, more than 60 Public Authorities have yet not shown compliance to these provisions of the Act despite repeated directions from the State Information Commiss-ion to the Administrative Departments and Public Authorities under their control to fulfill the mandate of Section 4(1) (b) so that bulk of the information in respect of Public Authorities and about different facets of their working remains in public domain as envisaged in the Act.
“Many Public Authorities have not shown a positive response in opening websites and uploading the mandatory information thereon”, the State Information Commission said in its Annual Report, which was tabled in the State Legislature yesterday.
As per the status of compliance to Section 4(1) (b) of the Right to Information Act as on March 28, 2016, Command Area Development Srinagar, Directorates of Horticulture, Jammu and Kashmir, Horticulture Mar-keting and Planning Department, Directorates of Floriculture, Kashmir and Jammu, Director-ates of Animal Husbandry Jammu, Jammu Cooperative Milk Fed Ltd, Directorate of Sheep Husbandry Jammu, J&K Gramin Bank, Directorate of Indian System of Medicines, Government Medical Colleges of Jammu and Srinagar, Project Director AIDS Control Society, Controller of Drugs and Food Control Organization, Srin-agar Municipal Corporation, Directorate of Geology and Mining, Directorate of Handicrafts are among over 60 Public Authorities which have not hosted Section 4 on their respective websites thereby flouting the provisions of the Right To Information Act.
The institution of First Appeal under Section 16(1) of the J&K RTI Act is an immediate remedy available to the information seeker in case he/she is aggrieved of the decision of the Public Information Officer. Such appeals are handled by First Appellate Authorities, who are officers senior in rank to the PIO in the same department.
“However, it has remained a constant observation of the Commission that the First Appellate Authorities (FAAs) are not discharging their quasi-judicial obligations cast on them under the Act for disposal of first appeals”, the report said, adding “in some cases FAA don’t even call information seeker nor ensure that the applicant is heard”.
The report further said: “Any such disposal of the appeal is not acceptable under law. Generally, it has also been seen that orders are not passed by the FAAs or wherever any such orders are passed they don’t conform to the provisions of the Act”. This is notwithstanding the fact that Supreme Court has held that the institution of FAA cannot be made redundant. Even the State Information Commission in its observations over the past several years has urged the Public Authorities to effectuate the role of FAAs in order to minimize the number of complaints/ appeals against them originating from the information seekers.
Stating that Commission has been given the responsibility of preparing a report on the status of implementation and monitoring of the Act by virtue of Section 22 of the J&K RTI Act, the report said, “the Act also binds the Administrative Departments to collect and provide to the Commission such information as is necessary for preparation of its Annual Report in relation to implementation of the Act”.
“However, collection of information by the respective Administrative Departments from their Public Authorities and furnishing the same in a consolidated manner to the Commission is yet to become a regular feature with most of the departments despite the fact that Commission has laid down the periodicity for furnishing these quarterly/annual returns.
While quarterly return is expected to be received by the Commission in 15 days of the month following each quarter, the annual return is to be furnished by the departments in the month of April every year. “Due to non-cooperation from majority of the departments, the Commission is constrained to directly get the data from all field formations/HODs etc which is a time consuming process and puts pressure on the limited resources of the Commission”, the report said.
Follow our WhatsApp channel