Srinagar, September 13: The Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) while describing the Right to Information (Amendment) Bill of 2007, adopted by the two houses of the state Legislature, as ‘half-hearted effort’, has urged Governor, Lt Gen (Retd) S. K. Sinha, to withhold his consent on the plea that the Bill had a number of lacunae.
The State Legislature has made some amendments in its existing Right to Information (
RTI) Act, claiming to make it at par with Central Act. However, the rights body stresses that the amendments need lot more amendments.
In a communication to the Governor, the Human Rights body has requested Sinha to withhold his consent to the Bill under section 78 of the state constitution.
"The amendments to the
RTI bill were inadequate and do not provide citizens seeking information from the public bodies in Jammu and Kashmir the same guarantees and protection available to people in other states,” the rights body remarked.
It has also been requested the Governor to withhold his assent till the state Legislature makes the Bill at a par with the central act passed in 2005.
“The proposed amendments are a half-hearted measure and do not go the whole length of the way to bring the State
RTI Act at par with the Central
RTI Act. There was no visible public consultation conducted by the State Government prior to the tabling of the Amendments. Several MLAs had strongly argued for referring the Amendment Bill to a joint select committee consisting of members of both Houses of the J&K Legislature for detailed consideration of the Act and the amendments as this is an important law giving effect to a fundamental right of citizens something that was ignored by the state legislature,” the statement issued by the CHRI claimed.
According to CHRI press statement the amendments do not effectively secure the fundamental right to access information for citizens in Jammu and Kashmir. If the Amendment Bill becomes law, citizens will have inferior rights in matters relating to seeking and obtaining information from the Government as compared to that enjoyed by citizens in other parts of the country. Furthermore the amendments will create a weak enforcement mechanism for securing compliance of public bodies with the provisions of the J&K
RTI Act. The Amendment Bill requires several changes if it is to bring the Jammu and Kashmir
RTI Act at par with the Central
RTI Act,
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