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| Governor directs GAD to ensure voluntary disclosures | | Six years on, Govt departments defy essence of State RTI Act | | Early Times Report
Jammu, Jan 21: Right to Information Act (RTI) will complete six years of its enactment in Jammu & Kashmir after few months. But inspite of a lapse of so many years the pro active disclosure by public authorities under section 4 (1) (b) of J&K RTI Act 2009 is still not being undertaken and to make this happen , the Governor has himself intervened. The Governor on Mondaysummoned the Secretary General Administration Department (GAD) and directed him to ensure voluntary disclosure by the Government departments without any delay.
Governor directed the Secretary GAD Mohammad Ashraf Bukhari to ensure that every department discloses the requisite information as required under the RTI Act under section 4 (1) (b) and the same be put on their official websites and regularly updated. Governor N N Vohra also directed that all the Departments should also undertake an immediate review of Property Statements of Immovable Assets which were filed by the officers for 2013-14 and initiate action against those who failed to file the returns.
Pertinently, the J&K RTI Act 2009 was enacted on 9th March 2009 but even after a lapse of almost six years the Government departments have miserably failed to adhere to the guidelines of this transparency law.
One of the essential guidelines under RTI is to make voluntary disclosure by the public authorities contained in the section 4 (1) (b) of J&K RTI Act 2009. Under section 4 (1) (b) all the Public Authorities which includes Government departments , semi Government departments , corporations , boards ,councils etc have to make proactive disclosure of all official orders , circulars , notices etc so that such information is readily available in the public domain through the official Government websites , notice boards ,sign boards etc and people need not to seek such information under RTI Act. As per J&K RTI Act 2009 the proactive disclosure was to be made within four months (120 days) of the enactment of the State RTI Act.
"The J&K RTI Act was enacted in March 2009 and the Government should have made the proactive / voluntary / suo motto disclosures by the end of July 2009 but even till date 80 % of the Government departments , boards , corporations , semi Government department's etc haven't done so which is a clear violation of J&K RTI Act 2009" said RTI activist Dr Muzaffar Bhat.
Jammu based RTI activist Balvinder says that he hopes that after the intervention of Governor the authorizes at the helm of affairs will make the proactive disclosure without any further delay.
It is important to mention that Chief Information Commissioner (CIC) G R Sufi had also brought this matter into the notice of Government several times and during his previous meetings with Governor Sufi had shown his concern about non implementation of RTI Act by Govt particularly the implementation of section 4 (Pro Active disclosure). |
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