Economic Times: New Delhi: Monday,
July 18, 2016.
The Central
Information Commission has issued fresh notices naming top leaders of six
national parties - Rajnath Singh, Mayawati, Sonia Gandhi, Prakash Karat, Sharad
Pawar and Sudhakar Reddy - asking them to appear before it in cases filed by
activists for not responding to RTI queries.
The named
notices were issued after one of the complainants R K Jain alleged that
Registrar of CIC had adopted double standards in handling his complaints
against the six national political parties - BJP, Congress, BSP, NCP, CPI(M)
and CPI, by only naming Gandhi while the notices to others were sent to the
party chiefs.
After the CIC
declared these parties answerable under RTI Act in 2013, Jain had filed RTI
applications with Congress and other political parties seeking details of
donations, funding, internal elections of the parties, in February, 2014 and
after getting no response from them, moved the CIC with a complaint.
The leaders
have been asked to present their case on July 22 before full bench of the
Commission comprising Information Commissioners Bimal Julka, Sridhar Acharyulu
and Sudhir Bhargava which will hear the plea of Jain.
"Take
notice that if you fail to furnish your comments/reply by 20th July, 2016 and
fail to appear on the aforesaid date and time, it will be presumed that you
have nothing to say in your defence and the matter will be processed further as
per law," the notice said.
Earlier, a
notice was issued to Gandhi by name while notices to rest of the parties were
issued in the name of their Presidents/General Secretaries to which Jain had
objected and complained to Chief Information Commissioner.
In his
complaint to Chief Information Commissioner R K Mathur against CIC Registrar M
K Sharma, Jain alleged he had adopted double standards in issuing notice to
Sonia Gandhi "by name" as Congress President, while the names of
Rajnath Singh, Prakash Karat, Sharad Pawar, Mayawati and S Sudhakar Reddy, were
omitted though the complaints named them specifically.
Giving an
example, Jain had alleged that the then BJP President Rajnath Singh had
specifically been named in his complaint, while the present notice issued by
the Registrar is to the President, BJP.
"At
present, Amit Shah is the President of BJP, thus Rajnath Singh has illegally
and indirectly been exonerated by M K Sharma," Jain alleged.
"The
effect of omission of the name of the persons accused in the complaints from
the notice issued by M K Sharma, Registrar is the shifting of the penal
consequences to a person other than the one named in the complaint," Jain
had said in his complaint to Mathur, filed on June 15.
He said as
per the provisions of Section 20 of the RTI Act, the penalty is imposable on a
person, individually and personally, therefore such proceedings are in
personam, and if the name of the person against whom the complaint has been
filed is omitted from the notice/proceedings, he cannot be visited with penal
consequences.
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