GreaterKashmir.com: Srinagar: Tuesday, 08 July 2014.
Recently
Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, while hitting out at opposition People’s
Democratic Party (PDP) for inducting
“corrupt elements” into the party fold, urged upon the people of J&K
to seek information under Right to Information Act (RTI) about the conduct of
the inducted persons, many of whom were bureaucrats, police officers and
other Government officials until
recently. Omar Abdullah while addressing a political rally in a remote area of
Ramban district on June 30th said : “it
will be amply known how charges of corruption and misconduct are pending
against them, If such persons come to power, what would be the condition of the
State?”
Why CM
remained mum for 5 years ?
It is more
than five years now since Omar Abdullah has been in the power. In addition of
being Chief Minister of the state, Omar Abdullah also happens to be the
Minister in-charge of General Administration Department (GAD) which has the
administrative control over State Vigilance Organisation (SVO). Every year
scores of cases registered by SVO against corrupt Government officials are
referred to the GAD seeking its sanction
for prosecution. The GAD gives sanction in favour of just handful of officials
most of whom are Non Gazetted and lower rung Government employees viz. Junior
Engineers, Police Head Constables, Junior Assistants, Patwaris in Revenue
department, Village Level Workers (VLW’s) from Rural Development Department
etc. The Government hardly gives any sanction for prosecuting the top level
bureaucrats in-spite of the fact that cases of corruption, mismanagement, and
frauds are pending against these officials in SVO or even in the State Crime
Branch. I have myself gathered this data obtained under Right to Information
Act (RTI) from the State Vigilance Organisation (SVO) some time back. The said
details have also been made proactively available on the official website of
General Administration Department (www.gad.jk.nic.in) as well. Can Chief Minister Omar Abdullah
tell people of this state as to why his Government was selective in choosing
the Government officials against whom sanction for prosecution was to be
issued? Can the Government answer how many cases of corruption, fraud, misuse
of official position etc. were registered by SVO, and Crime Branch against the
Government officials (senior as well as junior) and out of these in how many
cases the sanction for prosecution was given after conducting enquiries either
by SVO or any other investigating agency from 2009 till date? If CM is really
bothered about corruption he should have acted proactively and framed charges
against all the corrupt Government officials instead of asking people to seek
information about the same using RTI.
Implementation
of RTI in CM’s office:
I remember a
case when Bashir Ahmad Malik from Drang Khag in Budgam district filed an
application under RTI Act in the CM’s office around 2010 seeking details about
amount spent by CM’s office on account
of his official chopper rides. This information was never provided to Bashir
by the CM’s office until the case landed in State Information Commission (SIC).
It was the SIC which actually ordered to reveal this information to the RTI
applicant. I don’t want to go into the details of that official information but
one thing I want to point-out here is that, had our system been so much
transparent, ordinary citizen of this
state like Bashir would not have to move from pillar to post to get the information
under RTI. The CM’s own office has been delaying to share the official
information under RTI and continues to violate the RTI Act as the CM’s official
website is defunct since last more than four years with the result proactive
disclosure under section 4 (1) (b) of J&K RTI Act 2009 hasn’t been
made by the CM’s office which this
office was supposed to do within 120 days from the date of enactment of this
act (March 20th 2009). Under these circumstances how can an Aam Aadmi ask for
information under RTI from various public authorities ?
Where
are public awareness programmes ?
The
Government is under legal obligation to create public awareness programmes on
Right to Information Act (RTI) and section 23 of J&K RTI Act 2009 lays
emphasis on this. Can CM tell people of this state how many public awareness
programmes on Right to Information Act (RTI)
his Government organized for ordinary citizens of this state from 2009
till date ? If CM asks people of the state to use RTI Act and extract
information about his political rivals , is he aware of the fact that only a
handful of people in the state are actually familiar with the procedure of filing an application under RTI
Act? When the Government itself has
failed to even generate RTI awareness
among masses , how can it dare to ask the people of this state to use
this act ? We must applaud the role of some civil society groups, NGOs and
State Information Commission (SIC) and the media who have been creating
awareness about RTI Act in the state in one way or the other and if handful of
people are accessing information using RTI as a tool the credit goes to these
civil society groups ,SIC and media etc rather than Government.
Conclusion:
The
Government made many promises in its 2008 election manifesto but only 10 % of
these promises were fulfilled. If CM was really concerned about corruption he
could have acted as people gave him a mandate to do so but unfortunately this
didn’t happen and instead corrupt and criminal elements are being patronized by
the Government machinery. Some months back a Public Prosecutor (PP) was caught red handed by SVO while accepting
a bribe Rs 10,000 from a poor man from Beerwah Budgam, but the influential
PP was released within days as he
happened to be a close relative of a Minister in the CM’s cabinet. I along with
eight other RTI activists were implicated in fake criminal cases during Feb
2010 at the behest of another senior cabinet Minister and the reason was that
we exposed the corrupt elements who were
political workers of this Minister.
Scores of cases have been unearthed by individuals, activists right from 2009 using RTI Act which includes EPIC
scam in Budgam, IAY scam, illegal appointments in Urban Local Bodies, Illegal
works executed under MG-NREGA, illegal purchases made by school education
department etc. Dozens of stories about
these cases were published in local newspapers also but the Government hardly
acted. CM has never shown any seriousness about eradication of corruption since
he assumed the office more than five years back
and now if he asks people to use RTI Act for extraction of information
against his political rivals, goes against the basic ethics of this great law
because the preamble of this law itself says that RTI is meant to ensure
transparency, accountability and good governance rather than settling personal
goals or pressurizing the political opponents.
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