By Shaik Zakeer Hussain, TwoCircles.net,
Banglore: The deadline for political parties to come under the ambit of the Right to Information (RTI) Act ended on July 15. However, major political parties chose to stay out of the act, defying CIC order to appoint information officers, appellate authorities and implement voluntary disclosure of information under Section 4 of the RTI Act.
On 3 June, 2013, in a landmark judgement passed by a bench consisting of Satyananda Mishra and Information Commissioners M.L. Sharma and Smt. Annapurna Dixit, the Central Information Commission (CIC) held the Indian National Congress, the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Communist Party of India (Marxist), the Communist Party India, the Nationalist Congress Party and Bahujan Samaj Party to have been substantially financed by the Central Government and as a result answerable under the Right to Information Act.
“The Presidents, General Secretaries of these parties are hereby directed to designate CPIOs and Appellate Authorities at their headquarters in six weeks. The CPIOs so appointed will respond to the RTI applications extracted in this order in four weeks’ time,” the commission had directed.
The order meant that the parties, who claim to work in the public interest, should be willing to allow Indian citizens to seek information, as they are entitled to do so from most government bodies.
From the very outset, parties had shown their opposition to the order with the leading Congress even dismissing it as “unacceptable”. BJP spokesman Prakash Javadekar had asked “What new element does it seek to add since the accounts are already open to inspection by the election commission.” Other major parties had similar aversion to it.
Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR), a voluntary organisation who spearheaded the campaign to have CIC bring political parties under RTI, said that out of the 45 RTI applications it sent to different parties, only four have responded so far, which includes the Peoples Democratic Party, Jammu and Kashmir National Panthers Party, All India N.R.Congress and the Indian Union Muslim League.
Of the four, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has provided detailed answers to questions such as information on Government allotted Offices and their areas, monthly rent being paid for their party offices, among others. While the Panthers Party has not denied any information, they have only provided it partially, says the ADR press statement.
The Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) and All India N.R. Congress (Puducherry) have responded back saying they do not come under the provisions of the RTI Act.
Meanwhile, a group of RTI activists from Pune have filed complaints against political parties to the Chief Central Information Commissioner (CCIC) for non-compliance of its order.