Reply to summons in a month, Central Information Commission tells parties

NEW DELHI: The Central Information Commission has given political parties a month's time to respond to summons for non-compliance of its June 3 order. The commission had ruled that all six national parties were public authorities and must respond to RTI queries.

In an order on Monday, the CIC slated the next hearing for January. The full bench ruled that the commission must consider the nature and scope of its own functioning to ensure compliance of its orders while also engaging respondents in the process. In the last hearing in November, none of the political party representatives had turned up.

Activists S C Agrawal and Association for Democratic Reforms co-founder Jagdeep Chhokar had demanded imposition of penalty and compensation.

The CIC on June 3 last year had declared Congress, BJP, CPI, CPM, NCP and BSP as public authorities answerable under RTI Act and gave them six weeks to comply with the mandatory requirements under law for the processing of applications seeking information. But none of the parties followed the directives.