Congress says it's opposed to political parties being covered by RTI

Congress spokesperson Janardhan Dwivedi today said that the decision will harm democratic institutions."It is not acceptable. We totally disagree withit. Such adventurist approach will create a lot of harm and damage to democraticinstitutions," he said. (Do you agree? Vote here)

The six national parties covered by the order have the right to challenge the decision in court.

Yesterday, the Central Information Commission or CIC said that these parties including the Congress, the BJP and Mayawati's BSP are within the ambit of the Right to Information Act.

This entitles citizens to seek written records from parties.  Parties have been ordered to appoint officials within six weeks to reply to RTI applications.  They have also been ordered to share mandatory details under a voluntary disclosure section of the Act on their websites.

The  verdict means that citizens can seek details of how parties select candidates, or details of their internal elections.

The BJP said today that it welcomes "any order that promotes transparency, we have always been for transparency."

But Sharad Yadav of the Janata Dal (United) lashed out at the order today and said the government must challenge it.  "There is already a Constitutional body - the Election Commission - to which every political party is answerable and is bound to function under its directives," he said

The CIC, explaining its verdict, said that parties get land for their offices at concessional rates and are allowed tax exemptions, which makes them public authorities to which the Right to Information Act must apply.

The verdict was in response to a clutch of petitions filed by senior advocate and activist Prashant Bhushan and RTI activist Subhash Aggarwal among others. Mr Aggarwal had sought to get details of voluntary financial contributions received by six political parties, including the names and addresses of the donors. The parties had refused.

The RTI Act makes transparent all written records. So it will still be a challenge to get details of political contributions of sums less than Rs 20,000, which parties are not required to maintain written records for. Most parties get a bulk of their contributions in multiple tranches of less than Rs 20,000. Parties like the BSP have stated that they get most of their funding through such small contributions.