Hindustan Times: New Delhi: Saturday,
June 08, 2013.
Political
parties will have to fight it out in the courts to get the Central Information
Commission (CIC) order covering them under the transparency law struck down.
The
government does not intend to rush to Parliament to amend the Right to
Information (RTI) Act to explicitly keep political parties out of the purview
of the information law. Or for that matter, move the courts to strike down the
CIC verdict.
"The
political parties affected by the CIC decision are free to go to the high court
and Supreme Court... The government does not a locus standi in this case,"
a senior government source told HT.
A
three-member CIC Bench presided by Satyananda Mishra had this week ruled that
six political parties -- the Congress, BJP, Nationalist Congress Party, CPI and
the CPM were public authorities under the RTI Act.
The Congress
- that refused to turn up at the two hearings of the CIC's full bench - has
been crying hoarse about the ruling, dropping hints that the government
could amend the law.
Officials
suggest that the CIC may have exceeded its brief by its wide interpretation of
the provisions.
While there
may be a case for more transparency in funding of political parties, the RTI
law wasn't drafted for this eventuality.
"If
someone from the Congress were to seek communications between the BJP president
and other functionaries, there is no clause under which this could be refused.
And it can't be anyone's case that the Congress had the right to this
information," one official argued.
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