NU Kohima Campus conducts in-house training for Group A and Section Officers
Meriema, July 21 (MTNews): Nagaland University, HQ-Lumami, Kohima Campus conducted a two-day in-house Training for Group A and Section Officers with Advocate Kezhokhoto Savi, Asst. Professor, Kohima Law College & President Nagaland Voluntary Consumers’ Organisation (NVCO) as speaker. The training was coordinated by Shyien Vihienuo, Joint Registrar, NU, Kohima Campus.
Kezhokhoto Savi highlighted various parliament acts such as the Consumer Protection Act, 2019 of which the state government is yet to implement. He said that Nagaland University is yet to change the syllabus on Consumer Protection to that of the Act of 2019 and compelled the three law colleges in the state to follow the repealed Act of 1986 which has become outdated. He also said NU is yet to change the Juvenile Justice (Care & Protection of Children), 2015 and is still following the Act of 2000 which was already repealed.
Savi also highlighted the position of Human Rights in the state and said “we should not allow another Oting incident in our land.” He said the Armed Forces (Special Power) Act, 1958 is considered to be a draconian law and that there is no hope for restoration of human rights exploitation while the state government has till date terribly failed to set up the State Human Rights Commission in Nagaland.
While highlighting the Right to Information Act, 2005(RTI), Savi said that awareness is still lacking. He also claimed that few village authorities/councils took resolutions “not to allow any citizen of their village to apply RTI without the permission of village authority/council to any authority/department to enquire anything about the village affairs” which he said is very much illegal as per the RTI Act as the Act clearly provides that any citizen in the country can apply RTI to any department/government.
“There are cases where the concerned department had also taken advantage of the illegal village council’s resolution in order to avoid furnishing demanded documents to applicants and even gone to the extent of summoning both the RTI applicant and village authority to their office,” he added. “These kinds of illegal resolutions taken by village authority/council are happening just because of huge indulging in corruption meant for village development,” he said.
Savi said, “Any recognized village under Nagaland Village Councils Act committing illegality is to be dealt with law seriously as huge corruption in the case of MGNREGA funds is becoming intolerable as huge amounts of rupees in terms of crores are being regularly granted for village development.”
He also highlighted the National Food Security Act and Food Safety of Standard Act and even LOKAYUKTA which is not doing well in the state. He said that the state government is purposely not taking initiative in appointment of Lokayukta who is to be someone either retired judge of Supreme Court or retired Chief Justice of High Court and competent members.