As underlined by the government, information is the currency of democracy. The Right to Information Act, 2005 is a key legislation in this regard and its implementation in letter and spirit remains to be important. Among others, it envisages a robust mechanism for monitoring of all Public Authorities by the Central Information Commission. Section 25 of the Act provides that each Ministry or Department shall, in relation to the public authorities within their jurisdiction, collect and provide such information to the Central Information Commission or State Information Commission, as the case may be, as later is required to prepare the report under this section and comply with the requirements concerning the furnishing of that information and keeping of records for the purposes of this section.
Under the ambit of the section, the Central Information Commission prepares an Annual Report on the implementation of the Act and makes necessary recommendations to Public Authorities regarding steps for bringing their practices in conformity with the provisions and spirit of the legislation.
As such All Public Authorities are required to submit four quarterly returns for yearly performance-assessment and finalization of the Annual Report. Public Authorities, which fail to submit returns, even for a single quarter, are treated as defaulters.
While the government said that all Public Authorities in Jammu and Kashmir are not submitting Annual Returns, it directed all CPIOs of various departments, their subordinate and field offices, Corporations, Boards and PSUS to register themselves and submit quarterly returns on the designated portal by or before this month. Although the concerned are bound by law, the government action in this regard is appreciative and one hopes that action warranted for failure would be taken without fail.
There is also hoping that the departments shall ensure compliance to Section 4 of the RTI Act which provides that the departments need to maintain all records in a manner which facilitates the right to information and can be computerised within a reasonable time; provide information suomotu at regular intervals through various means of communications, including internet; publish particulars of its organisation, functions and duties, the decision making process, a statement on its documents, consultation processes on its policies, details of on subsidy programmes and the budget allocated to each of its agency. The concerned authorities shall provide for greater voluntary dissemination on official websites, which would ease their load. At the same time, there is hope that the disclosures are not made with outdated information and thus defeat the very purpose of the legislation.