It is intriguing that even after 16 years of the passing of the Right to Information Act , liberties are taken in the UT of Jammu and Kashmir with its various provisions especially furnishing information to the applicants in most of the cases not within the stipulated time. It is not for the first time but on numerous occasions, the Central Information Commission (CIC) has taken a serious view and sought explanation from the erring authorities. Recently, an Assistant Regional Transport Officer (ARTO) and a Tehsildar have been asked to offer explanations in respect of failure to furnish the requisite information within the stipulated time to the applicants. There are instances that for the said purpose, bucks are passed on each other in Government departments instead of working in a coordinated spirit.
The fact that any delay without unavoidable reasons cannot in fact be made in the process of furnishing the requisite information to an applicant is still not known to many departmental heads and those designated to do the job. Equally, if the information is submitted but beyond the stipulated time as provided for under the RTI Act 2005 , that too constituted the violation of the said Act. In such cases, when applicants after exhausting the available options under the Act, inform the CIC , explanations are sought and if such explanations are found not plausible and convincing, other action as provided for under the Act is sought to be taken. Instances that even telephonic calls are not being attended by some Government officials when applicants want to know the status of their application which again not only has been taken serious note of by the CIC but that depicted absolute indifferent and evasive attitude of such officers /officials towards a sensitive matter like the RTI Act. The mindset needs to be changed and the lackadaisical approach given the go-by.
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