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| Denial of info about semi ring roads: SIC summons ACR Budgam | | | Early Times Report
Srinagar, Apr 7: The State Information Commission (SIC) has listed a complaint filed against Assistant Commissioner Revenue (ACR) Budgam for not providing information under the RTI Act to affected farmers whose land is going to be acquired by government for semi ring road. The Commission has issued notice to the officer and has summoned him for hearing on April 11.
The ACR, who is also the Collector Land Acquisition, had told the information seekers that he is not the designated PIO. DC Budgam on the other hand disapproved ACR's statement and authenticated that he was the designated PIO under RTI Act in DC Office Budgam for matters related to revenue and land acquisition. The aggrieved had approached SIC with a complaint against ACR last month.
The application under RTI Act was filed on 21.02.2017 by Ghulam Ali Darzi and Ghulam Qadir Rather, both residents of Budgam. The applicants are the aggrieved farmers affected by semi ring road land acquisition. The information seekers wanted copies of notifications, communication between Collector LA Budgam and National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) and other documents related to Land Acquisition for proposed road.
The RTI applicants allege that 300 families are affected by this road and thus they were in urgent need of these documents as according to them land is being forcibly acquired by Government and National Highway Authority of India (NHAI).
"NHAI pays four times more compensation to affected families/farmers in other states of India. But to us it pays only stamp rate plus 15% Solatium (Jabirana) in J&K because the Central Land Acquisition Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act (LARR) isn't applicable to J&K," said Ghulam Ali Darzi while talking to Early Times.
"The documents related to this land acquisition should have been made available proactively under section 4 (1) (b) of J&K RTI Act 2009 but this was not done. J&K Land Acquisition Act also directs the authorities to make these documents public, but the officers hardly care and take poor farmers for granted and that is the reason we tried to use RTI Act but have failed to get the information," Ghulam Ali added.
"We invoked Life & Liberty clause of J&K RTI Act 2009 as this is a very serious issue as land is to be acquired very soon and we are asked to accept a meager payment. We wanted information to be provided to us within 48 hours, but now 30 days have elapsed and we haven't been provided the information/documents," said Ghulam Qadir Rather.
"Even if the information does not come under Life & Liberty clause still the same was to be provided as expeditiously as possible (see section 7 of J&K RTI Act 2009) as the information was neither to be created or to be obtained from some other Public Authority. The information is very much present in ACR's office and the officer has lied to information seeker and thus violated the RTI law," said Sarat Dubey another affected farmer and a social activist from Jammu
After 29 days, that is, on 20.3.2018 the information seekers got a letter from ACR Budgam dated 3.3.2018 saying he is not the designated PIO. But at the same time he didn't mention who is the PIO who can provide information. The aggrieved farmers filed a complaint under section 15 of J&K RTI Act 2009 before the SIC. The case has been listed before Chief Information Commissioner (CIC) on April 11. |
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