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| Babus reluctant to function as PIOs, Appellate Authority | | Posts being downgraded to defeat RTI Act | | ET Report
srinagar, Jan 21: To defeat the provisions of the Jammu Kashmir RTI Act 2009, the authorities have downgraded the post of IO and First Appellate Authority. According to legal experts, this has been done to save the Babus who otherwise are supposed to furnish information that is sought under the Act.
Earlier, Special Secretary GAD was designated as PIO and the Commissioner Secretary was designated as 1st Appellate Authority. But after some time the Deputy Secretary was designated as PIO and the Special Secretary was designated as 1st Appellate Authority. There are reports that presently an Under Secretary to Govt is functioning as PIO in the same Department and earlier also for some time the Under Secretary functioned as PIO in GAD.
Similarly in the State Home Department Additional Secretary Jehangir Mir functioned as PIO but presently the post of PIO had been downgraded and one Achal Sethi who is Under Secretary in the Deptt functions as PIO and the 1st Appellate Authority post lies with the Special Secretary.
In the Divisional Commissioner Kashmir's office Additional Commissioner functioned as PIO under J&K RTI Act 2009 till few months back but now OSD in the said office has been designated as PIO and the Additional Commissioner is the 1ST Appellate Authority
In Sher-i-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS) the Joint Director (Adm) used to be PIO till some months back but now one Ghulam Nabi Khan Administrative Officer (II) functions as the PIO.
The question arises that who gives the authority to such officers to keep themselves away from the post of PIO's or the 1ST Appellate authorities. The State Information Commission needs to intervene . The PIO and the 1st Appellate Authority post must not be changed for at least 2 years and some guidelines must be issued in this regard.
It is now almost 3 years since Jammu and Kashmir State enacted a new version of Right to Information Act (RTI Act) which is at par with the Central RTI Act of 2005.The J&K Right to Information Act of 2009 was signed and gazetted on 20 March 2009 . Since the Act was gazette, the RTI activists had repeatedly asked the Government to release a draft of the Rules for public commentary. Unfortunately, the Government did not responded to this nor did the Government engaged the public in preparing the Rules in 2009 , 2010 and even very recently when the Govt amended the rules the Chief Information Commissioner (SIC) of the J&K State Information Commission GR Sufi was also not taken on board and the question of consulting civil society or RTI activists did not arise.
The Central RTI Act of 2005 applies to the Central Government and States of the Union, except J&K State. The J&K State had enacted J&K RTI Act in the year 2004 for the first time during the time of Mufti Mohammad Sayeed when he headed the PDP- Congress coalition and during that time there was no such law enacted at the Centre but some States had enacted similar law at State level .
In 2005 the Central Govt led by UPA-1st enacted RTI Act 2005 but that was not extended to J&K in view of the article 370 and the people of J&K continued to access information under J&K RTI Act 2004. But during the tenure of Ghulam Nabi Azad as Chief Minister of J&K some amendment was made in the J&K RTI Act 2004 and thus J&K RTI amendment Act 2008 was enforced that time.
The J&K Government led by Omar Abdullah enacted J&K RTI Act in the year 2009 which is similar to the Central RTI Act of 2005 and presently people access information under this act and thus J&K RTI Act 2004 and J&K RTI amendment Act 2008 got repealed. Under the present RTI Act (JK RTI Act 2009) all the public authorities (Govt Departments, Corporations, Semi Govt Organisations etc) were supposed to designate Public Information Officers (PIO's) Assistant PIO's and Appellate Authorities. The PIO is supposed to provide the information to the RTI applicants, APIO's are supposed to receive the RTI applications and the Ist Appellate Authorities have to hear the appeals if the applicants are not satisfied with the reply provided by the PIO.
But since last three years it has been observed that the officers who had been designated as PIO's and 1st Appellate authorities are trying to save their skin from providing information to the RTI applicants and the post of PIO and 1ST Appellate Authority (1st AA) is continuously been downgraded and the lower rung officials in the departments are being designated as PIO's and 1st Appellate Authorities. This is done because many PIO's and 1st Appellate Authorities had to face the wrath of State Information Commission and some of them were even penalised by the said Commission. |
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