Times of India: New Delhi: Friday, August 02, 2013.
Ignoring
concerns raised by civil rights activists the Union Cabinet on Thursday gave
its nod for amending the Right to Information (RTI) Act to exclude political
parties from its purview. The bill will be placed before the monsoon session
starting August 5.
The
amendments have been necessitated by a Central Information Commission (CIC)
order on June 3 that ruled that 6 national parties—Congress, BJP, BSP, CPI, CPM
and NCP—were public authorities on the grounds that they were substantially
funded by the government. The CIC also directed the parties to appoint public
information officers by July 15, an order that was ignored by all 6.
The cabinet
gave its nod to amend the RTI Act to keep political parties out of the ambit of
transparency law.
The
department of personnel and training (DoPT), which acts as nodal department for
the implementation of the RTI Act, in consultation with law ministry moved the
proposal to amend the RTI Act.
The
government seeks to change the definition of public authorities mentioned under
Section 2 of the RTI Act to keep all political parties out of the jurisdiction
of RTI, the sources said.
Government
sources said that there was unanimous support from all political parties on the
issue.
The CIC order
argued that political parties received income tax exemptions and doles from
government including land, electoral rolls and airtime on public broadcaster at
nominal rates on the grounds that they were doing social service. The CIC order
said that since the parties' professed to be working for the public, they
should be open to scrutiny from the public on the finances and decisions.
Political
parties across the board have opposed the order. They have argued that
political parties are a voluntary association of people and in fact a very
small part of their funds come from the government. The parties also said that
they were under scrutiny of the Election Commission and the Income Tax
authorities. Both parties and candidates are expected to furnish their sources
of funding and details of assets owned to both authorities.
Prominent
activists including Aruna Roy, Shailesh Gandhi, Jayati Ghosh, Kamini Jaiswal,
Nandita Das, Prashant Bhushan and Soli Sorabjee have written to the PM.
Petitions have also been sent to parliamentarians to oppose the act which is
unlikely since the bill has near unanimous political support.