Like all RTI legislation, it is intended to provide citizens of the state of Jammu and Kashmir with a legal mandate mechanism for obtaining government records.
[2] The enactment of this Act came within the larger context of the Right to Information movement in India, which resulted in the passage of several state-level RTI Acts across India, including Tamil Nadu (1997), Goa (1997), Rajasthan (2000), Karnataka (2000), Delhi (2001), Maharashtra (2002), Madhya Pradesh (2003), Assam (2002) and Jammu and Kashmir (2004).
Instead, under the Constitution of Jammu & Kashmir, the state's own Legislative Assembly has the option of (a) voting to "extend" a Union Act to its own state using a special legislative procedure, (b) voting to enact a state-specific law of its own using the traditional state-level drafting process, or (c) simply ignoring the Union Act altogether.
Despite several years of lobbying by citizens' groups, the government of Jammu & Kashmir opted not to extend the Central Right to Information Act, 2005 to J&K.
In December 2008, the National Conference party led by Omar Abdullah announced that a new RTI Act was among their "election manifesto" goals.