Indian Express: Shailesh Gandhi: Mumbai: Saturday,
June 08, 2013.
Should
political parties be brought under the RTI? Two former central information commissioners
debate.
On reading
The Indian Express editorial (‘Party police’, June 5) and Pratap Bhanu Mehta’s
article (‘Party fixing’, IE, June 6) about the CIC order declaring that six
political parties are public authorities, I felt they had missed a crucial
point. The decision of the commission has been based on the RTI Act. The act
states that all public authorities are obliged to give information as per its
provisions. Section 2 (h) of the act states that a non-government organisation
substantially financed, directly or indirectly by funds provided by the
appropriate government, is also included in the definition of a public
authority. This was the only matter the commission was called upon to
determine. The commission looked at the figures presented to it, and these
appeared to show that crores of rupees of government money had indeed been
given to the political parties, which has been detailed in its order. After
this, the only issue for the commission to determine was whether funds over Rs
100 crore could be considered “substantial funding”. The commission concluded
that this was “substantial funding”, and hence ruled that the political parties
were “public authorities” as defined under the act and should, therefore, be
willing to part with information to citizens as per the law. There are a number
of high court judgments that have confirmed this interpretation.
This
determination has nothing to do with the Binny judgment and is primarily based
on the fact that the law prescribes the NGO as a public authority. The act does
not envisage covering any body that performs public functions as a “public
authority”. Though these have been mentioned in the CIC order, the main reason
is the “substantial funding” received by the parties. It also appears that the views
expressed so far in this paper appear to believe that political parties will
now have to be accountable to the commission. The RTI Act envisages that
information on record must be furnished to any citizen, unless the entity is
exempt as per the provisions of Section 8 or 9. The information commission
comes into the picture only when there is a dispute between the citizen and a
public information officer on the issue of providing information. The prime
minister would be subject to the authority of an income tax officer in matters
relating to his personal income tax, and a chief minister may be questioned or
arrested by a police officer. Do we object to this accountability? Democracy
requires that everyone is accountable to the law, and there are multiple
statutory authorities who are expected to ensure compliance with different
laws. To say this constitutes handing over control to the commission is
hyperbole. The RTI is a citizen empowerment tool, not a commission empowerment
one.
The real
issue to be debated is, should citizens have a right to know about the
political parties that run governments? The Supreme Court had ruled before the
advent of the RTI Act that citizens have a right to know about the assets and
criminal records of those who stand for elections. A citizen can meaningfully
use his vote only if she is informed about the candidates and political
parties. It can be argued that the citizen’s need to know about the functioning
of political parties is greater than his need to know about individual
candidates. I must point out that RTI will not be able to uncover the illegal
money used by political parties, unless they are being kept in their records.
The act
cannot, and does not, allow the commission or citizens to question the
practices of these parties. It will only uncover records or the fact that there
are no records kept by them. Citizens will become more aware, which may
influence their votes, and perhaps the way political parties work. Is this
citizen awareness and pressure a factor that should make us uneasy? In the last
seven years, I cannot think of a major activity or institution where any harm
has befallen those who had to give information. I admit some mistakes and
corruption have been unearthed. These will slowly change the government, and
institutions will become more accountable.
One more
question that needs to be asked is, what is the harm if political parties
subject themselves to the RTI? Presently, they are acting like children who do
not want to go to school on the first day. Even if some embarrassing
information is revealed, it would lead to improvements in their functioning.
Transparency is a tool that improves the workings of individuals and
institutions. This decision, if accepted in the right spirit, will enrich our
democracy and political parties.
.JPG)
.JPG)
