Lays stress on mechanism to track movement of applications
Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Nov 21: Expressing concern over non-implementation of vital provision of Jammu and Kashmir Right to Information Act, 2009 regarding suo-moto disclosure of information even eight years after the enactment of the legislation, the State Information Commission (SIC) has issued numerous directions to the General Administration Department (GAD) and sought Action Taken Report (ATR) within a period of two months.
Moreover, the Commission has explicitly conveyed to the Chief Secretary that without compliance to these directives the objectives of the J&K RTI Act given in the preamble-securing transparent, accountable and corruption free governance– cannot be achieved and people will continue to face lot of problems in accessing information and services from the Government agencies.
The directives for strict implementation of Section 4 of the J&K RTI Act, 2009 pertaining to mandatory and suo-moto disclosure of information by the Public Authorities have been issued by the Chief Information Commissioner Khurshid A Ganai while dealing with two complaints submitted under Section 15(1)(f) of the J&K RTI Act, 2009.
Through the complaints the Commission was informed about poor state of compliance by the Public Authorities with their mandatory obligation of proactive information disclosure. “The compliance with Section 4(1)(b) of the J&K RTI Act continues to be poor even eight years after the enactment of legislation whose objective is to ensure transparent, accountable and corruption free governance”, the complainants submitted before the SIC.
It was also submitted that even General Administration Department, which is the Nodal Department in the State for implementation of RTI Act, is itself not fully compliant with the requirement of proactive disclosure of information.
Admitting the complaints for inquiry under Section 15(2) of the J&K RTI Act, which states that it shall be the duty of Information Commission to receive and inquire into a complaint from any person relating to requesting or obtaining access to records under the Act, the Chief Information Commissioner has directed the General Administration Department to submit a statement of compliance in respect of all the provisions of Section 4 by all the Public Authorities in the Government.
“In the first phase statement of compliance by all the Administrative Departments, all subordinate State/Divisional level departments under each Administrative Department, Divisional Commissioners and Deputy Commissioners be submitted”, the CIC said, adding “the GAD shall issue instructions to all the Deputy Commissioners to ensure that all the major district level departments dealing with important developmental and socially relevant programmes and schemes have good quality websites which are not only maintained and updated on a continuous basis but also enable online submission of applications for benefits and services under various schemes and online delivery of services”.
The GAD has further been asked to impress upon all the Administrative Departments, the Divisional Commissioners and Deputy Commissioners to ensure implementation of provisions of Section 4 through the non-digital method by way of publication of records, catalogues, public notice boards and such like non-digital means.
“It should be kept in mind by all the Public Authorities that compliance with these directions will go a long way in fulfilling the objectives of the RTI Act given in the preamble—securing transparent, accountable and corruption free governance for the citizens, who are otherwise subjected to lot of problems and delay while accessing information and services from Government agencies”, the Commission said.
The Commission has further emphasized on the need to devise and install a system in all Government offices and with all the Public Information Officers to enable receipt of RTI applications electronically and for giving electronically generated receipts so as to track the movement of applications at regular intervals.
Giving two months time for ensuring strict compliance by the Public Authorities, the Chief Information Commissioner has directed the GAD to submit an Action Taken Report in respect of these directions. “The Commissioner/Secretary to Government, GAD shall attend the next hearing on January 22, 2018 to present the report”, the CIC said.
In one complaint it was brought before the Information Commission that a study of 230 official websites-those of two Divisional Commissioners, 22 of districts and 209 of different departments, autonomous organizations, universities and cooperative societies owned, controlled or substantially financed by the J&K Government was conducted by the complainant—Dr Sheikh Ghulam Rasool in collaboration with the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) headquartered in New Delhi for assessing the state of compliance with the requirement of proactive disclosure of information under Section 4(1)(b) of the Act and the outcome of the study was disturbing.
In the second complaint filed by the RTI activist Balvinder Singh it was submitted that the system of receipt of RTI applications in most offices in the State is manual and the record is not maintained digitally. “This practice of making entries in physical registers against the digital is not allowing proper tracking and monitoring of the RTI applications”, he stated in the complaint, adding “the manual record keeping doesn’t facilitate the Public Authorities to provide information to the SIC under Section 22(2) to enable the SIC to prepare the annual reports”.
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