House panel backs government's plan to amend RTI

NEW DELHI:A parliamentary committee has backed the government’s decision to bring an amendment to exclude political parties from the ambit of the Right to Information (RTI) Act even as the Attorney General (AG) and the Union Law Secretary held divergent views on it before the panel.

As per the parliamentary panel report tabled in Parliament on Tuesday, AG GE Vahanvati told the panel that the proposed amendment to RTI Act, excluding political parties from the definition of public authority, may not withstand constitutional challenge as it is creating a class within a class without having any consideration to the principle of intelligible differentia having reasonable nexus with the objective of the RTI Act.

“Political parties are foundations of democracy and need to be given sufficient protection from malicious and motivated application for which safeguards already exist under Section 8 of the Act,” the AG told the panel. The report notes that the AG was ‘apprehensive’ that this law would not sustain the test of judicial scrutiny.

“The law secretary was of the view that it (amendment) was quite sustainable since Parliament has legislative competence to override the Central I n f or m a t i o n Commission decision. The committee subscribes to the opinion expressed by the law secretary,” the parliamentary panel report said, adding that the proposed amendment is a “right step” by the government.

The report also notes that all major national parties including the Congress backed the amendment except the CPI.