'Govt's move to exempt political parties from RTI unfortunate'

Social activist Aruna Roy today said that political parties should come under RTI in order to maintain transparency in their financial matters and termed as "unfortunate" any attempt to nullify the CIC order in this regard.
"What the political parties do financially should be known to people, hence they should come under RTI," Roy told while addressing a event of her NGO 'Suchna ka Adhikar Manch'.
She said that it was "unfortunate" that political parties got united in favour of hiding their information from people.
Activist Nikhil Dey said that parties should have invited social workers to seek their opinion on the matter but unfortunately it was not done.

The Union Cabinet on August one gave its nod to amend the Right to Information Act to keep political parties out of the ambit of transparency law.
The move followed the Central Information Commission holding that six national parties -- Congress, BJP, NCP, CPI-M, CPI and BSP were substantially funded indirectly by the Central government and were required to appoint public information officers as they have the character of a public authority under the RTI Act.
The Right to Information Act empowers a citizen to seek time-bound information on all matters of governance by paying a fee of Rs 10.