Political parties join hands to reject CIC order of bringing them under the purview of RTI Act

NEW DELHI: Parties across the political spectrum have joined hands to reject the Central Information Commission’s order bringing them under the purview of the RTI Act, aimed at transparency and accountability. Congress, which counts the legislation among the major achievements of its UPA-I regime, led the opposition to the order. “It is not acceptable. We totally disagree with it.


Such adventurist approach will create a lot of harm and damage to democratic institutions,” Congress general secretary Janardan Dwivedi said on Tuesday. “Getting political parties entangled in such unnecessary things will damage the democratic process.

We simply cannot accept it,” said Dwivedi. CIC had said that six national parties — Congress, BJP, NCP, CPM, CPI and BSP — had the character of public authority under the RTI Act because they had been substantially funded indirectly by the central government.

For once, the rest of the parties appeared more than willing to echo Congress’ views and voices of dissent against the order were raised by the main opposition BJP, JD(U) and CPM, among others. BJP questioned the pragmatism of the move and said EC should clarify whether parties should declare their assets to CIC. CPM polit bureau rejected the order and questioned the logic behind it.

“This decision is based on a fundamental misconception about the role of political parties in a democracy,” it said, adding. While the party said that concerns over funding were well-placed and claimed the Left had always sought transparency on funding, it questioned opening up internal deliberations on policy matters to the public.

“A political party is a voluntary association of citizens who believe in the ideology, programme and leadership of the party. That party is accountable to its membership. To apply RTI and demand access to the internal deliberations of the party whether it be on policy matters, organisational decisions or selection of candidates will constitute a serious infringement of the inner-party functioning, confidentiality of discussions and undermine the political party system itself,” it said. JD (U) also expressed shock over the order.

Party chief Sharad Yadav said the order was in no way justified as “political parties are not shops”. Yadav said, “We are totally against this move.” Meanwhile, the Association for Democratic Reforms, an applicant which has taken up this fight for transparency, filed a caveat before the Delhi High Court to prevent a unilateral stay on the CIC order.

“We have this morning filed a caveat in the Delhi HC so that no party can get stay on the CIC order without we being apprised of,” Anil Bairwal, ADR’s national coordinator said. An official of the Department of Personnel and Training, which acts as a nodal department for implementation of the RTI Act, said the government would take into account concerns raised by the parties. MoS for personnel V Narayanasamy said he would study the order before commenting on it.