Daily Excelsior: J&K: Saturday,
08 August 2020.
It is
quite astounding that the importance of the Right to Information Act is still
not realised and non seriousness shown is galore in implementing its various
provisions by majority of the Public Information Officers (PIOs) in various
departments of the UT of Jammu and Kashmir. In other words, it denotes that a
feeling is floated that the apparatus of the Government functioning , its
various departments and agencies etc were not quite responsive and perhaps good
governance was in increasing deficit. Should on frequent occasions ,
intervention of the Central Information Commission (CIC) be considered even a
routine exercise and the strictures passed by it against the ‘defaulting’ UT
authorities and issues clear cut orders for due compliance in respect of non
implementation of various provisions of the RTI, be not considered as a
reflection of recklessness on the part of the PIOs. The crux of the provisions
of the RTI are that any Indian citizen had the right to seek information from a
public authority of the Government and such authority was bound to furnish the
requisite information at an early date within 30 days of such request.
Seeking
information includes inspection of work and records , taking notes, extracts or
certified copies of the documents and records and even taking the certified
samples of material held by a public authorityand rendering such assistance to
the applicants, in seeking the desired information , which they may feel in
need of . Public Information Officers , in this aspect, are expected to play
the key and hence the prominent role . In fact, legally the PIOs are bound to
give information to a person who applied for getting the requisite information
under the RTI Act. It is again either a travesty or the lack of adequate
knowledge about the subject that most of the PIOs perhaps do not know that a
citizen’s right to information is no less than at par with the Members of the
Parliament and members of the State Legislatures or in other words it means any
information which under rules cannot be denied to these representatives of the
people cannot be denied to an ordinary common citizen desirous of seeking an information.
To make things smooth and easy for information seeking citizens, it is
incumbent upon the PIOs that the information canbe made known also through
means and measures like on notice boards, through newspapers, by public
announcements, media channels, internet and other means including inspections
of offices of any public authority.
The
leverage and the elasticity in the exercise to furnish a particular information
gives the autonomy to a seeker to feel not satisfied , of course on tangible
grounds and apprehensions, and an applicant can bring into notice of an PIO
about such dissatisfaction which needed clarification and more elaboration .Not
only that an information within the realm of another PIO but receiving the same
from an applicant by a particular PIO cannot return the same to him or her
simply because it did not pertain to that PIO but is duty bound to transfer
such written request to the concerned PIO within five days so that due process
of sharing the information did not take more time. Under these clear cut
provisions of the RTI Act, all going in recognition of the right of a citizen ,
it is a matter of stupefaction that avoidable instances of non implementing the
provisions of the Act should come to the fore. However, it is also not the purpose
of the RTI and its provisions that to satisfy an applicant seeking information
in a particular form or content can be given which had the idea of reshaping
the information as no PIO can reshape, alter or modify any information but as
it is, and not otherwise barred by the law from disclosing , can furnish the
same. What is needed that the UT Government of Jammu and Kashmir must reorient
the structure and the realm of providing the information to citizens vis-a-vis
the Public Information Officers , under the RTI Act and pass clear cut, serious
and business like directions to all PIOs in respect of implementation of all
the provisions of the RTI Act scrupulously to avoid complaints and the
resultant complicacies at the levels of the Central Information Commission.
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