All national parties will now come under the ambit of the Right to Information (RTI) Act.
In a landmark verdict, the Central Information Commission (CIC) ruled here on Monday that the six national parties – Congress, Bharatiya Janata Party, CPI(M), CPI and the Bahujan Samaj Party – “have been substantially financed” by the Government and thus RTI will be applicable to them.
The CIC also directed the presidents and general secretaries of these parties to designate public information officers and appellate authorities at their headquarters within six weeks.
“The CPIOs so appointed will respond to the RTI applications extracted in this order in four weeks time,” the order said.
“The criticality of the role being played by these political parties in our democratic set up and the nature of duties performed by them also point towards their public character, bringing them in the ambit of Section 2(h) (of the RTI Act),” the order said, holding that the political parties with national status are public authorities under the same Section.
A full bench of the CIC, comprising Satyananda Mishra, M.L. Sharma and Annapurna Dixit, delivered the judgement while considering an appeal filed by Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR) and RTI activist Subhash Chandra Aggarwal against a single-bench verdict of the CIC.
The order said bringing the political parties in the ambit of RTI Act was likely to usher in an era of transparency in their functioning. Dismissing the stand by political parties, except CPI, that RTI should not be applicable to them as political rivals may misuse it, the order said the validity of a statute cannot be questioned only on the basis of presumption of its possible misuse.
“It would result in strengthening of democracy and democratic institutions in the country,” the order said.
The Congress said if there was unanimity on the order among political parties, it would accept the CIC’s decision.