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| Govt Departments fail to make voluntary disclosures under RTI | | | Early Times Report
Srinagar, May 31: The tall claims of e-governance and Information technology (IT) revolution notwithstanding, the Jammu Kashmir Legislative Assembly continues to function without a website. Not only this most of his Government departments continue to violate the State Right to Information Act (RTI) by not making pro active disclosures under section 4 (1) (b) of J&K RTI Act 2009.
These disclosures are mainly supposed to be made via official websites of various public authorities cum Government departments, but irony is that even in the year 2014 we have many important public authorities in J&K which are without any official websites and one such public authority is Jammu & Kashmir Legislative Council which is not only a public authority but a very sacred and holy place of democracy. Legislative Assembly is the supreme institution of legislature in our state which is superior to judiciary and executive, but the way this institution has been maintained is very much disastrous. The biggest irony is that J&K Legislative Assembly has no official website where the information would have been available in the public domain especially viz a viz questions being raised by the Members of the Assembly (MLA's). J&K is the only state in India which has no official website for its state legislative assembly and this is totally a shameful act on part of our Government.
On the other hand J&K Legislative Council has a well maintained official website but one fails to understand why Legislative Assembly failed to launch its official website. By not creating the official website of J&K Legislative Assembly, the J&K Government has not only brought disrepute to the state but it has also openly violated section 4 (1) (b) J&K RTI Act 2009, and the said act was unfortunately enacted in the same sacred institution which is now violating this law. Under section 4 (1) (b) each public authority has to proactively make available lot of information through its official website but when there is no official website how can the information be made available?
While talking to Early Times noted RTI and political activist Dr Raja Muzaffar Bhat said that he sought some information about questions raised by various MLA's in J&K assembly from the last few years, but the PIO of J&K assembly provided him misleading and incomplete information even after paying requisite RTI application as well as photocopying fees. " I have only been provided title of the question not the full question raised by few MLA's from time to time since last 4 years , but as per section 4 (1) (b) of J&K RTI Act 2009 the information which I sought under RTI Act should have been proactively available on the Legislative Assembly website but the how unfortunate it is that our state assembly has not even created its website "? If the Legislative Council has a well maintained official website wherein all the questions raised by various MLC's are available , why not the state assembly follows it ? I appeal Hon'ble State Information Commission (SIC) to take a serious note of this issue Dr Muzaffar added.
Pertinent to mention that all the states in India have a well maintained official websites of their respective legislative assemblies and all the questions raised by respective MLA's is available on the official websites . But in the tech savvy CM's Jammu & Kashmir , one has to file an application under RTI Act for seeking information about the questions raised by MLA's and in turn the officials instead of providing complete information provide incomplete information to the RTI applicants. |
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