The
Economic Times: New Delhi: Thursday, November 01, 2012.
A full bench
of the Central Information Commission, the final appellate authority on Right
to Information (RTI) Act, will on Thursday decide whether political outfits
should come under the purview of the Act. Political parties are yet to show any
inclination towards adopting the transparency legislation.
Chief
Information Commissioner Satyananda Mishra and Information Commissioners ML
Sharma and Annapurna Dixit would give their verdict on separate appeals by RTI
activist Subhash Agrawal and Association for Democratic Reforms. The commission
has been examining the matter since September.
It had given
notices to all political parties to appear before the bench and give their
views on whether or not they should be treated as public authorities like
government departments. All national parties, barring NCP and CPI, chose to
ignore the notice and did not appear for the hearing on September 26.
The bench
decided to give time till the first week of October. However, even after a
month national parties like Congress, BJP, SP, BSP and CPM have refused to
respond. Till Wednesday evening, only NCP and CPI have given written
submissions before CIC.
Political
parties have been arguing that they are not government-funded entities and do
not fall under the ambit of the RTI Act. CPI, represented by D Raja, had
contended that morally RTI Act should apply to political parties, but
technically there was no ground for it. However, ADR has prepared a detailed
presentation and argued that indirectly political parties get major benefits
from the government. These include land at concessional rates, party offices on
government land and media reach during elections.
ADR presented
that all political parties receive government funds, but claim tax exemptions
on 100% of their incomes, under Section 13A of the Income-Tax Act. As per ADR's
estimates, tax exemption by six national parties for financial years 2006-07 to
2008-09 is 510.02 crore. Congress received maximum tax exemption, 300.92 crore,
during the period, followed by BJP, 141.25 crore. The tax rebates enjoyed by
other national parties for the period are as follows: BSP: 39.84 crore, CPM:
18.13 crore, CPI: 24 lakh and NCP: 9.64 crore.
As per the
RTI Act, a public authority is defined under Section 2 (h) as "any
authority or body or institution of self-government established or constituted
- (a) by or under the Constitution; (b) by any other law made by Parliament;
(c) by any other law made by state legislature; (d) by notification issued or
order made by the appropriate government, and includes any - body owned,
controlled or substantially financed; non-government organisation substantially
financed, directly or indirectly by funds provided by the appropriate
government." Interpretation of 'substantially funded' would be the key in
the CIC judgement.
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