Daily Excelsior: Srinagar: Friday, May 19, 2017.
From last few
years what I have witnessed is that Pubic Information Officers (PIOs) are
taking an undue advantage of section 6 (3) of J&K RTI Act 2009 wherein the
Government officers are bound to
transfer the application filed under RTI to another public authority in case
they are not in possession of the information which is being sought under RTI
Act . Now it has become a habit of many
PIOs especially those posted in Administrative Departments (Civil Secretariat) to transfer the RTI
application to their respective Sub Ordinate Organizations and Directorates.
The subordinate organizations, DC offices and directorates further transfer
these applications to their district, divisional, block , tehsil and other line departments. Recently I sought
information from Planning & Development Department about the allocation of
funds to various departments, its utilization , funds getting lapsed and reason
for such lapses. The Civil Secretariat Planning Department forwarded my
application to all the departments and directorates by invoking section 6 (3)
of J&K RTI Act 2009. Had Planning & Development
Department not been in possession of this information , in that case it
was well understandable why my application was forwarded to other
organizations, but Planning Department is in possession of all this
information. The PIO of this
organization in order to play safe forwarded my application to dozens of Govt
organizations. Until now I got information from only two Departments ie
Directorate of Agriculture and DG Fire & Emergency Department.
Section 6
(3) of RTI Act ?
Section 6 (3)
of J&K RTI Act 2009 says that where an application under RTI Act is made to
a public authority requesting for an information which is held by another
public authority or the subject matter of which is more closely connected with
the functions of another public authority , the public authority to which such
application is made , shall transfer the application or such part of it as may
be appropriate to that another public authority and information RTI applicant
immediately about such transfer. This section is basically a safeguard for RTI
applicants who at many times are told that information sought for belongs to
some other organization. If an information seeker files an RTI application
before Block Development Officer (BDO) and
details of Health Department are sought
, the BDO cannot reject the application , but the officer will invoke
section 6 (3) of State RTI Act 2009 and forward the application to Block
Medical Officer (BMO), Chief Medical Officer (CMO) or even Directorate of
Health . The section 6 (3) is a safeguard for illiterate and people belonging
to disadvantaged communities, but unfortunately this section is misused a lot
by PIOs and even First Appellate Authorities (FAAs).
Planning
Department :
Can Planning
& Development Department give in writing that the information sought my me
is not available with them ? How is it possible that details about budget
allocated to various public authorities (Govt departments) , its utilization and funds getting lapsed
during last three financial years is not
maintained by them ? They are supposed to have all this information , but in
order to avoid information seekers they simply misuse one of the provisions of
RTI law. I can quote several instances wherein RTI applications have been
forwarded by public authorities to their sub ordinate departments in-spite of
the fact that they were in possession of the information which was sought under
RTI Act . Few years back I sought information from Civil Secretariat Power
Department about allotment of works on
various power projects . My application was forwarded to various Chief
Engineers by the PIO of Civil Secretariat Power Department in-spite of the fact
that his own department was in possession of such information.
Conclusion
:
Section 7 of
J&K RTI Act 2009 says that on receipt of an RTI request the Public
Information Officer (PIO) shall as expeditiously as possible dispose of the
said request but it should not take more
than 30 days for such disposal . When the PIO transfers RTI application to
another Public Authority under section 6 (3) , it takes months together to get
the information. The information which is provided by the dozens of Govt
organizations is misleading and RTI applicant faces difficulty to compile the
same. Recently Chief Information Commissioner (CIC) Khurshid Ahmad Ganai issued
an order warning PIO of DC office Srinagar as he forwarded an RTI application
to a tehsildar by misusing section 6 (3) of State RTI Act. The RTI applicant
was seeking a copy of report submitted before Vigilance Organisation by DC
office some time back. The DC office PIO
forwarded the application to Tehsildar
Shalateng.
What a cruel
joke is this ? How can Tehsildar have this
information with him as he had nothing to do with it ? When the information seeker Abdul Majid
Zargar a resident of Zainakot Srinagar didn’t get any response from said
Tehsildar, he filed appeal before DC Srinagar, the DC again forwarded his
appeal to SDM Srinagar West in-spite of the fact that SDM was not in possession
of the said information (copy of Vigilance report ). These were all delaying
tactics used by DC office Srinagar, but finally they were taken to task by the
CIC. Details about budget allocation , its utilization and funds getting lapsed
is supposed to be made available pro actively by all the organizations under
section 4 (1) (b) of J&K RTI Act 2009 , but Planning Department has failed
to do the same and that is another violation of the RTI Act.