The
Hindu: Goa: Tuesday, 11 November 2014.
The Central
Information Commission (CIC) has fixed November 21 for hearing on
non-compliance by six political parties of its full-bench verdict dated June 3
last year bringing political parties under purview of Right to Information(RTI)
Act.
In the notice
issued on November 3, the CIC has noted that responses have been received only
from four political parties CPI (M), CPI, AICC and NCP. BJP and BSP have not
responded to the notice.
After
perusing the responses received, the CIC is satisfied under sub-section (2) of
section 18 of the Act that there are reasonable grounds to inquire into the
matter and accordingly, it has asked the parties to appear before the
Commission on November 21, and to produce all relevant documents/records
relating to the action taken in pursuance of the directions contained in the
Commission's order dated June 03, 2013.
In the
complaint filed by RTI activist Subhash Chandra Agarwal and others, the CIC had
issued notices to the six political parties for non-compliance of Commission's
said order regarding CIC declaring these political parties as "Public
Authority".
After their
failure to comply, the CIC had issued series of reminders and eventually a
notice asking to show-cause within four weeks from September 10 as to why an
inquiry should not be initiated in the matter of non-compliance of the
Commission's original order under section 18 of the Right to Information Act,
2005.
The CIC had
warned the parties that if they fail to respond within the prescribed time, the
matter will be processed further on the strength of the material on record, in
accordance with law.
The notices
were issued to Bharatiya Janata Party, Nationalist Congress Party, Bahujan
Samaj Party, Communist Party of India (Marxist), Communist Party of India, and
Indian National Congress.
The CIC had
held on June 3, 2013 that the six political parties have been substantially
financed by the Central Government under section 2(h)(ii) of the RTI Act. The
criticality of the role being played by these political parties in our
democratic set up and the nature of duties performed by them also point towards
their public character, bringing them in the ambit of section 2(h), and as such
they were public authorities under section 2(h) of the RTI Act.
Accordingly,
these political parties were directed to designate Chief Public Information
Officers (CPIOs) and the Appellate Authorities at their headquarters in six
weeks time. The CPIOs so appointed were expected to respond to the RTI
applications extracted in this order in four weeks time.
Besides, the
Presidents/General Secretaries of these political parties were also directed to
comply with the provisions of section 4(1) (b) of the RTI Act by way of making
voluntary disclosures on the subjects mentioned in the said clause.
.JPG)
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