Kashmir Times: Srinagar: Wednesday,
April 02, 2014.
The Right to
Information Act since its inception in 2005 in Center and 2009 in Jammu &
Kashmir has begun an era of transparency and accountability in governance and
functioning of public authorities. The Right to Information is given the status
of the fundamental right under article 19(1) of the constitution of India. In
1976, the Supreme Court of India in the case of Raj Narain vs State of UP, said
that it is not possible for the people to speak or express themselves unless
they are informed and further observed that since India is a democracy, people
are the masters. Therefore, the masters have a right to know how the
governments, meant to serve them, are functioning. Moreover every citizen pays
taxes. Even a beggar pays tax (in the form of sales tax, excise duty etc)
whenever he buys anything from the market. The citizens, therefore, have a
right to know how their money is being spent by the government.
These three
principles were laid down by the Supreme Court while observing that Right to
Information (know) is a part of our fundamental rights.
Ironically no
significant attempt was made either by the Central or State Government to
implement the observations made by the apex court in regard to Right to
Information. The current of demand for right to information for was first felt
in Rajasthan and subsequently it swelled throughout India. The Mazdoor Kisan
Shakti Sangathan (MKSS) started the Right to Information movement in Rajasthan
and later it spread all over India .
Though in
2002, the then NDA led government enacted a law known as Freedom of Information
Act 2002 but due to less media propagation, bureaucratic apathy and lack of
awareness of the citizens this act could not become familiar amongst the masses
and slowly became redundant. Finally, In May 2005, the central legislation i.e.
Right to Information Act 2005 was passed by Parliament. The RTI Act 2005
received presidential assent on 15th June and came fully into force on 12th
October 2005. The journey of RTI act has not been that easy either in center or
in the state of Jammu & Kashmir , which has its own RTI Act 2009, as it
faced sturdy resistance from the corrupt and the anti transparency faction of
the society.
The present
form Jammu & Kashmir Right to Information Act, 2009 came into force on 20th
March 2009. Ever since its enactment it has tasted both the appreciation and
apathy from the Government. The state RTI Act was weakened by the state
government it by bringing amendment in the rules of the act which made it
almost powerless as it curtailed most of the powers of the State Information
Commission, the apex RTI body act in the state. The mysterious silence of the
State Information Commission at the time when the old rules were repealed by
the Government raised many eyebrows and condemnation from the civil society and
RTI activists. Moreover, the reluctance shown by the State Information
Commission in conducting awareness programs among masses regarding the
implementation of RTI act in the state further distanced the commission from
those activists/stakeholders who are acting to safeguard the epitome of
transparency in the state.
The apathy
and outlook of the State Information Commission towards RTI activists and other
advocates of transparency in the state can be well gauged from the fact that
seldom the State Information Commissioners had held any meetings with the RTI
activists and other stake holders to know and discuss the issues experienced by
them for the better implementation of state RTI act.
Justifying
its stand the learned commissioner states that in the RTI act there is no
mention of the word 'activist', but it fails to understand that as per RTI act
there is also no mention of any obligation on anybody to put one's life on
threat to expose the corrupt practices prevailed in the society. But still
there are altruistic people who with missionary zeal to save the nation from
the monster of corruption, showing utmost courage, files RTI and fights against
the set system of sleaze to expose the corrupts and misdeeds in the governance
and public sectors.
The State
Chief Information Commissioner need to understand that an applicant is one who
files an RTI for its own purpose and cause whereas an activist is the one who,
feeling his/her moral responsibility towards society, uses the act and files
RTI in the larger public interest and these people well deserve to be
recognized as activists by the commission, feeling its own moral responsibility.
The
commission and activist are the soul and heart of the transparency act as one
cannot function properly without the other. The nation in general and the state
in particular has seen the fate of all those acts in which there was no
significant role of activists , they all either met their silent death before
bringing any change in the society or became weak and redundant.
The poor
implementation of section 4(1)(b) of the RTI act which obligates the public
authorities to pro actively disclose information regarding its functioning,
pathetic record management and lack of digitization of records in public
authorities are the major roadblock to the effective realization of the RTI act
in the state.
The Public
Information Officers (PIO) who are designated under the RTI act to provide
information to the applicant , in most of the cases are overburdened as apart
from discharging duties as PIO , they are also designated to perform other
functions of the public authority.
Since RTI is
a time bound matter and in the absence of timely delivery of information, the
PIO could be penalised, the PIO gives preference to the timely disposal of RTI
applications and hence the other function of the public authority performed by
the same PIO is sidelined and delayed, which again ultimately adds to the
suffering of the citizens. The act which is made to bring transparency becomes
the biggest blockade for getting their work done for citizens in such
circumstances. To overcome such situations apart from proper digitization of
the record, deliberations should be made by the competent authorities to
designate PIO exclusively for the timely disposal of the RTI requests and they
should not be delegate any other function, so that other work of public
importance do not get suffer.
Inspite of
all such shortcomings, in a short period of 5 years since its enactment, the
RTI act has been successfully used by many RTI activists in the state to
uncover many scams and transgression in the governance from sales tax scam to
defunct lying ventilators and wastage of precious blood in the Government
Hospitals of the state, snail's pace of work at Mubarak Mandi Complex or fake
gold offering and many new incidents of scams exposed through the RTI are being
reported almost daily.
The sunshine
law can attain its true spirit only when everyone in the civil society attain
the spirit of activism and use the RTI act to establish an accountable, public
welfare friendly ,corruption free and transparent governance.
By
Deepak Sharma
(The author is RTI Activist and can be
reached at rtiactjk@gmail.com)
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