New Delhi, July 24, 2013: The RTI Act was introduced to bring transparency and efficiency in the system of working of government and non-government organisations has not been relished by the political parties. The plea taken is that since there is no government funding and as such they should not be brought under the Act.
The CIC ruling relying on Section 2(h)(ii) of the RTI Act that states that “public authority” includes any non-governmental organisation substantially financed, directly or indirectly, by funds provided by the appropriate government.
Barring CPI, the other five parties affected by the CIC ruling — Congress, BJP, CPM, NCP and BSP — have hotly contested the interpretation.
Different versions came from the major political parties. CPM said the order could be used by political rivals to destabilise parties and Congress described the ruling as “adventurist” and while BJP said the order’s reasoning could be extended to cover media organisations that receive government advertising.
In fact, the Centre – run by the Congress led by UPA, intends to exempt political parties from RTI scrutiny on the ground that they are not substantially funded by the government and they are not bound to disclose the details of any donors and other funding sources.
However, before moving to the Parliament for keeping the political parties under the ambit of RTI Act as per orders of CIC, a consensus is needed among all the major political parties
As per the sources, the political parties are not substantially funded and the cheap air or office time is only a few per cent of a major party’s expenses as they have to raise crores to fight elections. It is beyond one’s belief that the political parties have to raise loan to fight elections as there has not been even a single case noticed so far for raising loan for the elections purposes.
The use of black money in the elections cannot be ruled.
Since the RTI Act has empowered the citizens to expose certain corruption cases with its use, no amendment to the RTI Act to exclude political parties should be accepted.