The Department Related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice has differed with the opinion of the Attorney General G.E Vahanvati over the proposed amendment to The Right to Information Act to exclude political parties as ‘public authorities’ and has held that the government was right in mooting the amendment.
The Right to Information (Amendment) Bill, 2013 seeks to amend the Right to Information Act, 2005 order to nullify the June order of the full Bench of Central Information Commission that brought six national parties under the act’s ambit.
In its report on the Bill, the committee contended that the CIC order was based on “misinterpretation of law.” The Bill, introduced in the last session of Parliament, was referred to the committee for closer examination.
“The Attorney General of India was apprehensive that this law would not sustain the test of judicial scrutiny as it was creating a class within a class without having any consideration to the principle of intelligible differentia having reasonable nexus with objective of the Act, whereas the Law Secretary was of the view that it was quite sustainable since Parliament has legislative competence to override the CIC decision. The Committee, however, subscribes to the opinion expressed by the Law Secretary,” panel chairman Shantaram Naik told journalists.
In his opinion to the Committee, Mr. Vahanvati also said: “Political Parties are foundation of democracy and need to be given sufficient protection from malicious and motivated application for which safeguards already exist under Section 8 of the Act.”
The parliamentary committee maintained that the aspects of transparency in financial matters of political parties were fully covered under existing laws and mechanisms. These include direction from Election Commission to the parties asking them to submit their accounts within 90 days after general election, inspection of accounts of candidate of political party and obtaining the same from the EC on payment of nominal charges, and declaration of assets and liabilities to the Ethics Committee of House by MPs.
BJD supports CIC orderMr. Naik said all the six national parties declared as public authorities by the CIC disagreed with the order. Though regional parties are not affected by the order, the Biju Janata Dal, through its member in the Committee, said it was opposed to the proposed amendment and fully supported the spirit and tenor of the CIC order.
He, however, conceded that the civil society was opposed to the proposed amendment. The Committee was of the view that declaring political parties as public authority under RTI Act would hamper their smooth internal functioning as party rivals may misuse the provisions of RTI Act.
