Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Dec 6: Lambasting the Coalition Govt for rendering the SIC completely defunct in the State, chairman of NPP and former Minister Harshdev Singh described it as the most outrageous act of sabotage by vested interests particularly the BJP.
Addressing a press conference here today, Singh said that the ministers and MLAs particularly those of BJP were in notion that while transparency was good for others, they should be left free and unquestioned. He said that the BJP’s resistance to RTI Act came to fore when one of the BJP MLAs moved a bill in the Assembly for the amendment of J&K RTI Act and alleged misuse of the Act by the so called “unscrupulous elements”.
He disclosed that the mover of the said Bill was the same MLA who called himself RTI activist before becoming MLA. He said that equally astonishing was the support given by the BJP ministers and MLAs to the said Bill ensuring its introduction in the last session of the Assembly and paving the way for its consideration in coming session of legislature. He regretted that by doing so, BJP was deliberately subverting the RTI Act in the State to end the regime of accountability and transparency.
Rebuking the hollow slogans of the Coalition Government of good governance, transparency and accountability, Singh observed that the solitary powerful legislation against corruption was being sabotaged by the Government itself. He said that the Government apart from paying no heed to the structural shortcomings in the Act and its execution had also allowed vested interests and regressive elements to defeat the purpose and essence of the very strong law against the varied mal-practices.
He said that the common masses including aggrieved and disadvantaged sections had pinned high hopes with the enactment of the RTI Act which had been based on the objective of transforming conventional electoral democracy into participative democracy. He added that the people expected that the time bound provision of information under the Act would not only ensure accountability but also curb corruption and other malpractices.
Singh further regretted utter lack of accountability in the present dispensation and attributed the extremely in-effective RTI mechanism in the State for breeding patronized corruption.
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