Attorney General, top government officials differ on RTI Bill

NEW DELHI: Attorney General and the Law Ministry are not on the same page over a move to keep political parties out of the ambit of the RTI Act.

This came to the fore at a meeting Parliamentary panel examining the measure.

Deposing before the Standing Committee on Law and Personnel here yesterday, Law Secretary B A Agarwal and other senior government officials defended the RTI (Amendment) Bill, 2013 while AG, G E Vahanvati had a contradictory view.

Government officials said a shield was necessary to keep political parties out of the ambit of the RTI Act.

They are understood to have cited the explanation in the bill introduced in the Lok Sabha in August.

The explanation on the bill reads: "The government considers that the CIC has made a liberal interpretation of Section 2(h) of the said (RTI) Act in its decision. Declaring a political party as public authority under the RTI Act would hamper its smooth internal working...further, the political rivals may misuse the provisions of RTI Act..."

But appearing before the Committee, Vahanvati is learnt to have said that political parties can come under the ambit of the transparency law as there were sufficient provisions in the RTI Act to shield political parties from undue harassment by rivals as feared.

In its June 3 order, the CIC had termed Congress, BJP, BSP, NCP, CPI and CPI-M as political authorities.

The Right to Information (Amendment) Bill, 2013 seeks to insert an explanation in Section 2 of the Act which states that any association or body of individuals registered or recognised as political party under the Representation of the People Act, 1951 will not be considered a public authority.

Committee Chairman Shantaram Naik refrained from commenting on evidences given by officers or the AG, but said, "All the views placed before the Committee would be looked into while drafting the report."