No end to hurdles

21/02/2019

Taking serious note of violation of provisions of J&K Right to Information Act and defiance of its orders, the State Information Commission has initiated penalty proceedings against two Executive Engineers (XEns) of Pradhan Mantri Gramin Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) and Fisheries Department. This has once again brought to the fore that in many Government departments hurdles are still being created in ensuring transparency and openness. After being denied information by the PIO, the applicant approached the Chief Engineer PMGSY Jammu for being First Appellate Authority in the month April 2018. The Chief Engineer took more than one month to simply convey to the appellant that requisite information was available on the departmental website. However, the information was not found available on the website by the appellant which compelled him to file Second Appeal before the Information Commission. Despite being given enough opportunity, the respondents chose not to appear before the Commission and even the Executive Engineer (PIO) failed to file counter statement in the appeal.
As per the second case before the Commission, an RTI application was filed before the Executive Engineer Fisheries Department Jammu seeking information on eight different points. However, neither PIO nor First Appellate Authority (Superintending Engineer) furnished information to the appellant which led to filing of Second Appeal before the Commission. On the initial date of hearing, the Commission directed the PIO to furnish complete information to the appellant within a period of two weeks but the order of the Commission was not taken seriously by the Executive Engineer. Taking serious view of the non-appearance of the PIO and his failure to furnish information to the appellant even after its directions, the Commission in its final order observed, “the attitude of the PIO indicates that he is averse to transparency and openness. By not furnishing information to the appellant within the period specified in Section 7(1) of the J&K RTI Act and also by his non-appearance before the Commission, the PIO/ Executive Engineer has violated the provisions of the transparency law”. Both these cases have made it clear that there is no end to hurdles in ensuring transparency in the functioning of Government departments and even First Appellate Authorities are not showing seriousness in implementation of transparency law.

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