Early Times Report
Jammu, Apr 23: The State Information Commission (SIC) has closed down an RTI complaint case on the ground that there are no merits to hold an enquiry and the information seeker has remained absent during the hearing.
The SIC in its order said that the complainant had filed multiple RTIs before the Social Welfare Board (SWB) and it seems there are some personal issues between the information seeker and the SWB. The information seeker had sought details of grant in aid given to the NGOs by the SWB.
Details available with Early Times reveal that a complaint was filed under section 15 of the J&K RTI Act, 2009 by one Ashok Kumar, of Narwal Pain, Satwari, Jammu, alleging that despite a lapse of six months no reply/information has been supplied to him by the PIO, SWB.
The complaint came up for hearing before SIC Jammu on 06.04.2018. The hearing was attended by Shahid Mehmood Dar, Executive Director, SWB. Gul Yasmeen, PIO, SWB attended the hearing through video conferencing from Srinagar office of the Commission.
The complainant did not attend the hearing. The PIO of SWB submitted a reply dated 04.04.2018, wherein she has stated that the NGOs who are receiving grants-in-aid under FCC scheme are not providing the information regularly to the Board and have also obtained stay order from the High Court in the WP 1205/2017 dated: 23.08.2017.
The PIO has also informed in the counter statement that the RTI applicant (now complainant "again and again sought the information of such NGOs from the Board which is not available with the Board." The Board transferred these applications to the concerned NGOs under relevant section. The NGOs approached the High Court vide writ petition 1205/2017, and the court in its order dated: 23.08.2017 put the said communication in abeyance on the plea amongst others that NGOs do not fall within the definition of public authority as envisaged under section 2(B) of RTI Act, 2009.
The complainant as per SWB has sought huge information to be collected from the NGOs which needs a lot of time and manpower. Since the Board has the dearth of manpower, if they remain busy in compilation of this information the routine work of the Board will suffer. The Supreme Court in its judgement titled Aditya Bandopadhay v/s CBSE has held that where an RTI applicant has sought voluminous information, he may be offered information of records.
During the hearing, the PIO also reiterated her stand taken in the counter statement dated: 04.01.2018.
The SIC's final decision: "The complainant is not present today. It is a fact that the complainant has filed other appeals/complaints against the respondents which have come up before the Commission earlier. He is reportedly himself working in the NGO sector. The PIO has reported in writing that the complainant has filed many other RTI applications which show that he may be having some personal grievances with the Board.
"In the light of what has been surmised above and in the light of what has been stated by the PIO and the absence of the complainant, it is best to dispose of this complaint with the observation that reasonable grounds for holding an enquiry under section 15 (2) have not been made out and, therefore, it will be appropriate to close this complaint as such. With these observations the complaint is disposed of."
Meanwhile, talking to Early Times, Farooq Ahmad Kuthoo, spokesman J&K RTI Movement said that before closing this case the SIC should have ordered for suo-moto disclosure of information under section 4 of J&K RTI Act 2009.
"The SWB must upload the details of grant-in-aid to NGOs on its official site. We urge upon the CIC to direct SWB to make this disclosure as soon as possible," Farooq added. |
