India Today: New Delhi: Friday,
June 24, 2016.
The Central
Information Commission has directed its registrar to issue fresh notices in the
names of the then chiefs of political parties after activist R K Jain alleged
that the concerned official in an earlier notice dropped all names except Sonia
Gandhis.
"If
specific name(s) of the respondent(s) is/are mentioned in the complaint, such
name(s) shall figure out in the notices issued by the Registrar," a full
bench of the Commission comprising Information Commissioner Sridhar Acharyulu,
Bimal Julka and Sudhir Bhargava said.
It also
granted time to Congress and NCP to file their responses besides giving another
opportunity to the respondent political parties BJP, CPI(M), CPI and BSP which
did not participate in the hearing.
"The
complaints filed by R K Jain for noncompliance of orders of the Commission
against six national political parties will be tagged and heard on the next
date of hearing. Other complaints and appeals will be heard separately on the
same day," he said rejecting the intervention applications.
The bench is
hearing a complaint from Jain alleging his queries to political parties seeking
details of donations, finances, internal elections etc were not responded to
which was a violation of the RTI Act.
In his
complaint, Jain has alleged that this was violation of a full bench order of
the Commission which had declared Congress and five other national parties
including BJP, CPI, CPI-M, NCP and BSP as public authorities making them
answerable under the RTI Act.
The full
bench of the Commission headed by the then Chief Information Commissioner
Satyananda Mishra had on June 3, 2013 brought six national parties--Congress,
BJP, NCP, BSP, CPI and CPM--under the ambit of RTI on the premise that they are
substantially funded by the government in the form of subsidies, cheap land for
offices, and tax concessions.
The order has
neither been stayed nor set aside by any of the high courts or the Supreme
Court.
During the
proceedings of his complaint, Jain had alleged Registrar M K Sharma had adopted
double standards in issuing notice to Sonia Gandhi "by name" as
Congress President, while the names of Rajnath Singh, Prakash Karat, Sharad
Pawar, Mayawati and S Sudhakar Reddy, have been omitted though the complaints named
them specifically.
"The
effect of omission of the name of the persons accused in the complaints from
the notice issued by M K Sharma, Registrar is the shifting of the penal
consequences to a person other than the one named in the complaint," Jain
had said in his complaint to Chief Information Commissioner R K Mathur, filed
on June 15. PTI ABS SMJ ZMN SMJ
.JPG)
.JPG)
