The Association for Democratic Reforms, a civil society claiming to bring transparency to Indian politics, on whose plea the CIC had passed the order, asked the high court that it should be given the opportunity to respond if any appeal is filed by any political party 

pti & sns

NEW DELHI, 5 JUNE: A caveat was today filed in Delhi High Court to pre-empt any ex-parte stay on the Central Information Commission order bringing political parties under the purview of Right to Information Act.

The Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), a civil society claiming to bring transparency to Indian politics, on whose plea the CIC had passed the order, asked the high court that it should be given the opportunity to respond if any appeal is filed by any political party. The ADR said they apprehend that political parties like the Congress, the BJP, the Samajwadi Party, the BSP and the CPI, the CPI-M and the NCP would challenge the CIC's 3 June order.

“No ex parte/ad-interim relief or otherwise be granted to the prospective revisioner/appellant without a prior notice thereof of the caveators/prospective respondents is duly served,” the caveat filed through advocate Ms Kamini Jaiswal said.

“The caveators have a strong case on merits and if an opportunity is granted to them, the caveators will convince this court not to grant ex-parte relief in the present case and to further dismiss any such revision petition/ first appeal against the order/interim application of the prospective revisioner/appellant on the merits,” as per the caveat.

On 3 June, the CIC has brought six political parties ~ the Congress, the BJP, the CPI-M, the CPI, the BSP and the NCP ~ under the ambit of the RTI Act, saying the parties are substantially financed by the Central government among other things.

The commission has said the political parties fulfil the criteria of being public authorities under the RTI Act and the presidents, general secretaries of these parties are directed to designate CPIOs and appellate authorities at their headquarters in six weeks.

CPI, CPI (ML) reject RTI coverage for parties  

The CPI and the CPI (Marxist Leninist) today joined other parties in rejecting the Central Information Commission order on extending the Right to Information (RTI) Act coverage to political parties.  

Expressing surprise over the commission’s order, CPI general secretary S Sudhakar Reddy said the CPI stands for transparency of funds, their sources and expenditure by the political parties. Political parties, as voluntary public organisations, are accountable on their sources of income, he said.  

Mr Reddy said the income tax exemptions, allotment of land for construction of party offices in New Delhi or elsewhere, do not make political parties organisations funded by the government.  

CPI (ML) general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya said his party was of the view that there should be adequate transparency “about the way activities of political parties are funded”.  

But, he said, “internal deliberations and decisions made by political parties belong to the domain of inner-party democracy and RTI cannot be used as an instrument to curb it. The norms of transparency and accountability applicable to governments that are elected by the people cannot exactly be applied to political parties which are constituted by members abiding by the programmes and objectives of the parties”.