Not just people, even records of human rights violation locked up in Jammu and Kashmir

Amidst complaints of gross violation of human rights in Jammu and Kashmir, the administration has now clarified that records of alleged human rights violations in the Union Territory are locked up in a room.

Venkatesh Nayak, a Right to Information (RTI) Activist, had filed an application under the Right to Information Act, seeking information on the number of complaints pending before the State Human Rights Commission as on October 31, 2019, the day The Jammu and Kashmir Re-organisation Act, 2019 came into effect.

In its reply, the Jammu and Kashmir, administration stated that after the reorganisation of the erstwhile state into two Union Territories, the Jammu and Kashmir Protection of Human Rights Act, 1997, which was a state act, was repealed. As a result, autonomous bodies like the State Human Rights Commission and the State Information Commission as Central laws took over.

The reply further stated that the (current) Jammu and Kashmir administration does not have information related to the records of the erstwhile State Human Rights Commission and that its records are locked up in a room, after it was wound up and the state was downgraded into a Union Territory in August 2019.

“All the records of the commission were locked in a designated room at the office premises of the erstwhile Human Rights Commission, Old Assembly Complex, Srinagar. The employees of the erstwhile commission were deputed and adjusted in different other departments.

“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. As the records of the erstwhile State Human Rights Commission are not accessible or available to the public authority of the department nor are under the control of such authority and the information sought by the appellant is connected to such records, suffice it to say that the required information to this extent is not held by the public authority,” it added.