Excelsior Correspondent
Srinagar, Mar 24: High Court has directed the Chief Secretary to pass appropriate orders for online RTI portals for the purpose of collecting information from Government Departments within three months.
The direction has been passed by the Division Bench of Chief Justice Pankaj Mithal and Justice Sindhu Sharma in a Public Interest Litigation whereby direction from the court was sought for establishing online RTI portal for the citizen in order to collect any requisite information from any Government department.
It is submitted in the petition that the Central Government has already requested all the States and Union Territory Governments to enable the citizens to file online applications for collecting information from the various departments.
In this regard various representations were made before the concerned but no action has been taken and the online RTI Portal facility is not being made available to the citizens. The last of the representation in this regard has been submitted by the petitioners on 12.12.2021 to the Chief Secretary, Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir.
The DB in view of these facts and circumstances, considered the matter and disposed of the same with the direction to the Chief Secretary to take a call upon the representation as already submitted and pass a speaking order on it.
Court directed the CS to do the exercise most expeditiously, preferably, within a period of three months from the date a copy of this order is produced before him. Court has left it open for the petitioners to make a fresh comprehensive representation in line with the representation already made so as to request the Chief Secretary to provide the facility of online RTI Portal.
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