Hindustan Times: New Delhi: Thursday,
October 24, 2013.
A
parliamentary standing committee holding consultation on amending the
transparency law to keep political parties outside its ambit in a secret manner
has irked RTI activists.
The
committee, to whom the RTI Amendment Bill was referred after lot of public
heat, held consultations with political parties in a five-star hotel in Mumbai
recently without any prior notice to people about the meeting.
The
committee had invited only two RTI activists and another two had reportedly
gate crashed at the meeting. However, the standing committee asked the
activists not to discuss the deliberations without anyone or they would be
booked for breach of Parliamentary privilege.
Former
central information commissioner Shailesh Gandhi in a letter to chairman of the
committee Shantaram Naik said many RTI activists from Maharashtra had sent
representations to the committee and requested an opportunity for a personal
hearing.
“It
would be very unfortunate if such a closed door meeting with two invitees and
their two friends is recorded as a public consultation,” he said, asking him to
conduct a properly organised consultation to hear view of the citizens in this
regard.
The
committee has received a large number of representations from citizens across
India against the government’s move to amend the RTI Act to exempt political
parties from its purview. A representation from Commonwealth Human Rights
Initiative says that many nongovernment bodies have already been brought under
the RTI Act for substantial funding from the government, the ground to
including political parties under the transparency law.
The
committee is expected to submit its report to the government before the start
of the winter session of Parliament in November-December this year.