Rights' violation records 'inaccessible': RTI reply

New Delhi, February 13

Records related to alleged human rights violations in J&K, which were being handled by the erstwhile State Human Rights Commission (SHRC), are locked up in a room since the panel was wound up after the state was downgraded into a Union Territory in August 2019, according to an RTI reply.

An application under the Right to Information (RTI) Act was filed by activist Venkatesh Nayak, who had sought to know the number of complaints pending before the commission as on October 31, 2019, when The J&K Re-organisation Act, 2019 came into force. The reorganisation bifurcated the erstwhile state into UTs, which resulted in the winding up of autonomous bodies such as the State Human Rights Commission and the State Information Commission as central laws took over.

Responding to Nayak’s application, the administration’s response stated, “The records of the commission were not formally handed over to the Department of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs and as such are not accessible to the department.” —