Greater Kashmir: Srinagar: Saturday, February 10, 2018.
Recently
Rural Development & Law Minister Abdul Haq Khan gave an irresponsible statement
from the floor of legislative assembly. While responding to MLA Kupwara Bashir
Ahmad Dar, Khan said “RTI activists are big blackmailers”. Minister Abdul Haq
Khan was replying to a query while a private members RTI amendment bill was
introduced by the MLA from Kupwara. Being a campaigner for the Right to
Information in Jammu & Kashmir, I, along with selfless colleagues of RTI
Movement have been hurt with this statement. Mr Abdul Haq Khan is not only
State’s Rural Development Minister but also holds the charge of J&K’s Law
Ministry & happens to be a senior lawyer who is well versed with the
provisions of law. He himself knows how useful and revolutionary RTI Act is. He
has himself used the law in past, I believe.
How is RTI
helpful to people ?
RTI is the
only the tool in the hands of poor and oppressed citizens that helps people
demand accountability from Government. RTI has transformed electoral democracy
into participatory democracy . 85 % countries in the world have enacted Right
to Information Law in one way or the other. In some countries it is called RTI
Act , somewhere it is called Freedom of Information Act (FoI) or Access to
Information Law (ATI). In addition to Jammu & Kashmir people in all the
states in India use RTI Act. Governments in Pakistan , Bangladesh , Sri Lanka ,
Maldives too have enacted Right to Information Act (RTI) during last 5 to 8
years. If handful of RTI users or information seekers have misused the process
of RTI law, that does not mean all the selfless people associated with creating
awareness about this law or motivating people to use RTI Act for getting
justice are blackmailers? There are people who have misused Public Interest
Litigation (PIL) that doesn’t mean PIL Activists are blackmailer ? PILs have
created revolution in India. In June 2016 National Conference MLA from Gurez
Nazir Ahmad Gurezi, who is present Deputy Speakers of Legislative Assembly,
along with Congress MLA G M Saroori, uttered similar words. Both the
legislators called RTI a blackmailing tool. If legislators start abusing RTI
law, what kind of empowerment they plan for their people?
RTI &
blackmailing ?
The term
blackmail originally denoted a payment made by English persons residing along
the border of Scotland to influential Scottish chieftains in exchange for
protection from thieves and marauders. In blackmail the threat might consist of
physical injury to the threatened person or to someone loved by that person, or
injury to a person's reputation. In some cases the victim is told that an
illegal act he or she had previously committed will be exposed if the victim
fails to comply with the demand. In our
state aforementioned things don’t generally happen but things like seeking
personal favours, creating pressure on Govt officials etc have been reported.
Such things only happen when the Government Officials too are involved in some
dirty game. If an officer is honest and does work sincerely , he or she would hardly get blackmailed or
harmed. We all know in majority of Government offices corruption is rampant.
When aggrieved people seek information about works, the corrupt Govt officials
feel they will get exposed. This happened recently in Bandipora where money
meant for MGNREGA works was misappropriated and credited into fake accounts.
The work has hardly been executed. It is
obvious that Rural Development Department (RDD) officials like VLWs ,
BDOs and people involved in this criminal act will call the whistleblowers who
exposed this scam as Blackmailers ?
Conclusion
:
I remember
words of Late Mufti Mohammad Syed while speaking at an RTI workshop on
September 9th 2009 in Srinagar. He
impressed upon his MLAs, MLCs, District Presidents and Zonal Presidents to make
rigorous use of RTI. He said “you can only get justice through RTI as we are
out of power. So seek justice for your people , make Govt accountable by
rigorous use of RTI”. It is so unfortunate that when the same party has come to
power, its senior leaders are calling RTI campaigners , activists and
whistleblowers blackmailers ! What kind
of message is Government giving to its people ? There are hundreds of success
stories wherein RTI helped people and exposed scams. It was RTI which exposed
Coalgate, 2G, Adarash Housing, Commonwealth and other scams. Recently a blind
PHD scholar Umar Rashid Bandari got justice when he was allowed to inspect his
and his colleagues OMR sheet, answer key etc. Umar had appeared for the post of
10 +2 lecturer exam last year , but he
was dropped. RTI was the only tool for this visually impaired scholar
and he fought for his right using RTI Act. We
helped Umar to draft his RTI application , went with him to PSC , State
Information Commission (SIC), are we also blackmailers ? What kind of message
is Government giving to its people ? We need an answer from the Government
& if it fails to come clear on this issue , we will question them using the
same tool of RTI ?
.JPG)
.JPG)
