The Express Tribune: Peshawar: Saturday, December 02, 2017.
The changes
proposed in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Right to Information Act, 2013 – aimed at
removing its shortcomings – have been bouncing back and forth between the law
department and the commission concerned for the past two years.
In February
last year, the changes proposed in the act were sent to the provincial law
department for vetting, which returned it to the commission, asking it to
redraft the amendments. Since then, the draft has been rebounding between the
two, while both blame each another for the delay.
Chief RTI
commissioner Azmat Hanif Orakzai accused the K-P law department of raising
unnecessary objections to the draft, while officials of the law department
contended that the commission itself was responsible for the delay.
“We asked
them to redraft the amendments and they sent the draft back after seven months
without any change at all,” said a law department official requesting
anonymity.
Last week,
two meetings were held in which officials of the law department, the RTI
commission, the K-P information department and other departments concerned took
part.
The
commission insists that it cannot formulate regulations until proposed
amendments are incorporated in the law because the existing law is silent on
the commission’s powers regarding regulating itself.
“Without
self-regulating powers, we cannot make the service structure governing our
staff,” said RTI Commissioner Mah Talat.
At present,
the law also lacks a mechanism for extracting information from a public body.
Under the law, whenever an individual is denied information by the Public
Information Officer (PIO), the commission fines the PIO for this act.
Similarly,
the act does not specify the appellate jurisdiction to which a person aggrieved
by the RTI commission can approach.
Currently,
the commission imposed fines on 10 PIOs, in separate cases, who approached
various courts against its decisions.
In the
proposed draft, the appellate jurisdiction was given to the Peshawar High
Court. But last week, officials of the law department suggested establishing a
services tribunal as the appellate authority whose decision will be final.
Talat said
that the mechanism for establishing the services tribunal was yet to be
determined. “The law department says that the high court is already
overburdened and this is why they suggested an independent services tribunal,”
she said.
The act also
lacked mechanism for imposing fines. The proposed draft stated that fines
“shall be deducted from salaries of PIOs in accordance with the Government Dues
Recovery Ordinance of 1962”.
According to
Talat, the law department is against the at-source deduction of Rs25,000 fine
imposed on the employees and suggested that it should be deducted in
instalments since the PIOs and their families are dependent on salaries.
An official
present in the meetings told The Express Tribune that the law department
officials also suggested adding the Note Part to the exemption section.
Public
awareness: Centre requested to extend RTI to PATA
“Note Part
should not be allowed to be sought under the law as it includes the internal
deliberations between officials and they are not final, so they should not be
allowed,” said the official, adding that the law department also suggested
adding the expression “public interest,” to the section under which the
information seeker asked for the information.
They said
that the information should be asked in public interest not for any mala fide
intentions, according to the official. The law department also suggested adding
the disclosure of the reasons by the information seeker in the application for
which he/she is taking the information; and participants of the meetings,
including the commission representatives, agreed to that.
Talat,
however, said they would take their decision on the suggestions of the law
department on getting the draft back from the law department after changes. “We
will examine the changes and will then send our reply,” she said.
.JPG)
.JPG)
