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| PIO's continue to violate law, CIC's letter gathering dust | | Failure of Govt to provide training on RTI Act ? | | Early Times Report
Srinagar, July 12: As Government fails to provide proper training to its officials about the implementation of Right to Information Act (RTI) in the state, the Government officials particularly the Public Information Officers (PIO's) and their seniors the First Appellate Authorities (FAA's) continue to violate the provisions of this transparency law in J&K about which the present Government led by Omar Abdullah is making all hue and cry. Even the State Chief Information Commissioner (CIC) G R Sufi wrote several letters to the Government regarding this matter but it seems his letters are eating the dust at Civil Secretariat and the reason is that CM is hardly bothered to ensure proper implementation of RTI law in J&K.
As per documents available with Early Times the PIO's of various directorates who usually are of the rank of Joint Directors or Deputy Directors are doing the job of their Director who is First Appellate Authority (FAA) in the directorate. Recently when an information seeker was not provided some information under RTI Act by the Chief Education Officer (CEO) Budgam , the information seeker filed 1st appeal before the Director School Education Kashmir (DSEK) who is a quasi- judicial authority under the J&K RTI Act 2009 . Instead of hearing the appellant the Director asked his Joint Director who actually is the PIO in the Directorate to dispose off the 1st appeal which he did without any hesitation without knowing the facts that it is an offence under J&K RTI Act 2009. This is not a single case but there are several cases like this where the PIO's as well as the FAA's don't know what their job is and the reason is lack of training about RTI. Even the CIC wrote several letters to the Government and one such letter is in possession of Early Times. The CIC had written a letter on the issue of lack of training and poor implementation of J&K RTI Act 2009 to the Government through Chief Secretary more than two years back vide letter No: SIC-J/15/2009-II Dated: 15/06/2011, but no action was initiated by the Government. The CIC's letter reads as :
"…….That there is hardly any PIO or Appellate Authority i.e. junior or senior officer who has actually gone through the provisions of the State RTI Act 2009. The Appellate Authorities being senior officers have by and large failed to pass orders in such a manner which would show that they have understood the import of term "Appellate Authority". This pressing issue may be brought to the notice of senior officers, similarly there is not so encouraging response from the Public Authorities with regard to implementation of Section 4 of the State RTI Act 2009 i.e. making voluntary disclosures on their websites. The Commission has been flooded with number of complaints and queries regarding the failure of the public authorities to fulfill this statutory obligation to "maintain their records duly catalogued and indexed in a manner and the form which facilitates the right to information under the Act and ensure that all records that are appropriate to be computerized are within a reasonable time and subject to availability of resources, computerized and connected through a network all over the State on different systems so that access to such records and information under section 4(b) is facilitated within 120 days from the commencement of the Act". That the Act has come into operation with effect from 20th March, 2009 and it is sad commentary on the compliance of the public authorities with this piece of legislation which the legislature of the State has rightly termed the progressive and people friendly legislation. I would like to suggest the Chief Secretary of the State to go through the latest Office Memo dated 6th of May, 2011, of the DOPT, Government of India, ( copy enclosed). The State Government may take similar steps with the consultation of the Commission. In case there is noncompliance and the mandate of the Act is not followed, the Commission would be constrained to hold Public Authorities responsible for failing in their duty.……….."
" It is now more than two years since this letter was shot to the Government by CIC, but who cares to take this issue seriously and I won't blame the Govt officials for not implementing the RTI Act, but it is the Government especially the office of CM which is responsible for all this mess because they have failed to undertake training programmes for the Govt officials," said Mir Aijaz an RTI activist from central Kashmir's Budgam district.
The letter further reads as:
"Accordingly, I am directed to request that the matter may kindly be taken up on priority in the COS meeting to impress upon the Administrative Secretaries to take necessary steps for implementation of the RTI Act and carry out mandate of Section 4(b) of the Act, not only at the level of their own Departments but at the level of Organizations/Departments working under their administrative control in the State". |
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