Right to Information Act now applies on political parties

Several abiding mysteries about how political parties in India are run will now have the sunlight shine on them. In a move that is likely to transform Indian politics, the Central Information Commission (CIC) on Monday said political parties are answerable under the Right to Information (RTI) Act.

A full bench of the Commission, comprising Chief Information Commissioner Satyananda Mishra and Information Commissioners M L Sharma and Annapurna Dixit ruled that six parties - the Congress, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Communist Party of India (Marxist), or CPI(M), the Communist Party of India (CPI), the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) - to whom RTI queries were directed, fulfil the criteria of being public authorities under the RTI Act.

"The presidents and general secretaries of these parties are hereby directed to designate CPIOs (central public information officers) and appellate authorities at their headquarters in six weeks. The CPIOs so appointed will respond to the RTI applications extracted in this order in four weeks time," the bench said.

It also directed the political parties to comply with the provisions of mandatory proactive disclosures clauses given under the RTI Act and put those details on their websites.

The case relates to RTI queries from activist Subhash Agrawal and Anil Bairwal of the Association of Democratic Reforms, who had sought to know the finances of and voluntary financial contributions received by these six parties and the names and addresses of the donors, besides other details which the parties refused to make public saying they were not coming under the RTI Act.

During the hearing, Bairwal raised three principal points justifying his arguments that parties were coming under the RTI Act -- indirect substantial financing by the central government, performance of public duty and Constitutional and legal provisions vesting them with rights and liabilities.

"We have no hesitation in concluding that INC (Indian National Congress), BJP, CPI(M), CPI, NCP and BSP have been substantially financed by the Central government and therefore they are held to be public authorities under Section 2(h) of the RTI Act," the bench ordered.

It further held the income-tax exemptions granted to the parties and free air time given by All India Radio and Doordarshan at the time of elections also substantially contribute to indirect financing from the government.

Citing a Supreme Court order where it held that the people must know the source of expenditure incurred by political parties during elections, CIC said these judicial pronouncements unmistakably command progressively higher level of transparency in the functioning of political parties in general and their funding altogether.