An appellant was told by an officer from the Air Force Works Wing at Srinagar that Right to Information Act was not applicable to Jammu and Kashmir when the contractual worker approached him about discrepancy in disbursal of his monthly salary.
Raashid, the appellant, and his colleague Riyaz were hired as DG set operator and Fitter Generator Mechanic respectively eight years ago by Air Force-1 Wing at the old airfield in Srinagar.
“We were paid a meagre salary of 3000 to 4000 rupees a month for some years while our actual salary was Rs 7500,” Raashid said.
“Every month 4000 rupees were illegally deducted from our salaries.”
However, in 2017 when Government of India started disbursing payments online, Raashid who was by then entitled to Rs 9800 salary a month began to hope that this transparency would come to his help.
“But the Junior Engineer, Assistant Garrison Engineer (AGE) and contractor directed all the contractual employees to return half of their monthly salary. Most of the (Contractual) employees agreed to it under pressure, but we protested and lost our jobs,” Raashid said.
In May, he filed an application under RTI with the Air Force Wing at Srinagar, but instead of getting a response, the Garrison Engineer categorically said that the RTI Act was not applicable to J&K.
“It is submitted that RTI Act 2005 is not applicable to the State of Jammu and Kashmir. In view of the above your application along with the postal order is returned herewith unactioned,” reads the response of the Garrison engineer.
In August, Raashid again filed an RTI application, but the Air Force Wing that had to respond to his request for information within 30 days hasn’t responded yet.
Mohammad Ashraf Mir, State Information Commissioner said, “The central RTI Act is applicable in all the Central offices that are working here, so they cannot deny the information.”