The Wire: Srinagar: Tuesday, July 25, 2017.
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| The RTI workshop held in Kashmir. |
Referring to
allegations of children being held under the Public Safety Act in Jammu and
Kashmir, former chief information commissioner Wajahat Habibullah today
asserted the need for involving youth in the ongoing debate on current issues
in the state.
Habibullah,
who was delivering the keynote address at an interactive workshop on J&K
Right to Information (RTI) Act in Srinagar, also noted that public confidence
in elected governments is undermined if access to routine information about the
working of the administration is denied.
He demanded
that RTI be used as an instrument for building public trust in the government.
“RTI enables
the public and government to work together to find solutions to problems of
governance and development,” he said, adding that “involving the youth would be
a crucial measure to reduce the current atmosphere of discontent.”
It was also
pointed out at the meeting that despite the Public Safety Act prohibiting the
detention of minors, children had been detained under it.
In his
address, vice chancellor of Central University Kashmir (CUK), Professor
Mehraj-ud-din said RTI was an invaluable tool for lawyers to get access to
facts and records. He also announced the setting up of an RTI Clinic in the
University’s Law Department to help and train RTI applicants in seeking
information under the law.
Speaking of
the need to use RTI as a tool for data-driven research, Sanjoy Hazarika,
director of Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, lamented that RTI was rarely
used by academics for research. He pointed out that data on a large number of
government websites was often dated. “Data tells stories, stories give
perspective, perspective gives the space for asking questions and interrogating
the norm,” he said.
Hazarika also
spoke about how RTI opened up opportunities for researchers to access official
data which was not easily available otherwise and provide feedback to
government for inclusion in processes and policies.
Justice
(Rtd.) M.S. Khan spoke of the need to protect whistleblowers. He lamented that
there was no mechanism for protecting an RTI applicant who seeks information to
demand transparency and accountability for wrongdoing in public authorities. As
a result, several citizens have lost their lives or have been brutally attacked
for seeking information across the country, he pointed out.
While a legal
expert, Professor Altaf Hussain Ahangar, spoke of the need for using RTI as a
tool to redress the grievances of the most disadvantaged segments of society,
the sub-divisional magistrate of Srinagar, Dr. Syed Haneef Balkhi said the need
of the hour was to reduce the time taken for supplying information to RTI
applicants from the present outer limit of 30 days. “This will ensure speedy
disposal of cases,” he said.
Leading RTI
activist Venkatesh Nayak made a presentation on key court judgments to explain
the developing trends in the RTI-related case law around the country.
One of the
most pertinent comments on the importance of RTI came from dean of students
welfare at CUK, Dr. Fayaz Ahmad Nika, who while voicing the need for spreading
awareness about the RTI Act among the disadvantaged groups said: “Laws will be
effective only when people know about them and use them in the right spirit.”
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