It is surprising that the self proclaimed ‘servants of the people’ deny them the right to seek information from them. The Central Information Commission (CIC) brushed aside their claim and constitutionally established how it was a democratic necessity for them to answer the information needs of the people. The CIC held that all political parties are public authorities and are thus under duty to inform the people as per Right to Information Act (RTI), 2005. It was again Subhash Chandra Agarwal, who imposed accountability on another significant tool of political governance, i.e., political party to achieve democratic goals of the constitutionally codified rule of law.
With all major political parties opposing the contention of Mr. Agarwal, supported by arguments of Prashant Bhushan, the CIC did a significant exercise in justifying consideration of political parties as public authorities.
The information activists have built a strong legal argument for bringing the parties into the RTI net. Though the Constitution of India in 1950 nowhere mentioned expression “political parties”, they hold constitutional status and wield constitutional powers under the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution which extend to
Thus, the Tenth Schedule to the Constitution vests tremendous powers with the political parties. They can oust an elected member – whether an MP or an MLA – from out of the party, if he steps out of the party line. Therefore, if purposive interpretation of the Tenth Schedule is made, the political parties can be deemed to be covered under Section 2(h) of the RTI Act which defines what public authority that makes RTI applicable is.
As per Article 102 (2) of the Constitution, a person can be disqualified from being a member of either House of Parliament under the Tenth Schedule and that a similar provision exists for the state legislators under Article 191(2) of the Constitution. Furthermore, as per Article 102(2), if a member of a House belonging to a political party votes or abstains from voting in the House contrary to the directions issued by the political party, he is liable to be disqualified from being a Member of the House.
Another significant legislation that deals with the political parties is the Representation of People Act, 1951 which gave statutory status to the political parties under pection 29A of that Act. Under Section 29A (5) of the Representation of People Act, 1951, the political parties are required to bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of India. These parties give tickets to the candidates and the people vote on party symbols and, thus, the Political Parties are important instrumentalities of democratic governance.
As per Section 29C of the Representation of People Act, 1951, all donations of and above Rs. 20,000/- made to political parties are required to be reported to the income tax department. This obligation cast on the political parties points towards their public character. The political parties are substantially financed by the ‘appropriate government’ in multiple ways and are exempt from income tax.
Section 80 GGB of the income tax Act provides that contribution made by an individual or company to a political party is deductible from the total income of the assesee. This provision is exclusively applicable to the political parties and is suggestive of indirect financing of the political parties by the State.
The RTI Act says any non-governmental organisation substantially funded by government will be a public authority.
Almost all political parties have got very valuable plots allotted by the Government at prime places in New Delhi and in their respective capital cities. The value of this accommodation and place in New Delhi is worked out to be Rs.2556 Crore.
Tax exemptions given to these parties are worth several hundreds of crores of rupees. During three years from 2006 to 2009, the value of these exemptions is: BJP Rs 141.25 crore, Congress 300.92, BSP, 39.84, CPIM 18.13, CPI 0.24, and NCP was given tax exemptions worth Rs. 9.64 crore. These political parties were also given a slot in AIR for their publicity which is calculated to be of Rs 28.56 Crore and for the time in Doordarshan were valued at Rs.10.75 crore.
It is a paradox that a small society, company and a trust is regulated in our country, but not a political party. The Election Commission of India(ECI) is really a tiger, but only in the jungle of elections. Immediately after elections, the ECI is controlled by ruling parties and there is absolutely no control or regulation of any political party. None could impose any kind of accountability on them. They have absolute freedom to collect huge contributions, build assets, amass and hide big wealth, reserve treasure for coming elections and influence voter with money power to get into the power. The ECI or any other body cannot impose any responsibility on a political party. It cannot even de-register, though it has to register, a political party.
However, the ECI is an instrumentality of the state. Allotment of election symbols by the ECI to various political parties is suggestive of the public character of the political parties.
Unfortunately, our democracy functions through organs of political parties which do not have any democratic character within themselves. The Law Commission of India in their 170th report on “Reform of Electoral Laws (1999)” said: “…it must be said that if democracy and accountability constitute the core of our constitutional system, the same concepts must also apply to and bind the political parties which are integral to parliamentary democracy. It is the political parties that form the government, man the Parliament and run the governance of the country. It is therefore, necessary to introduce internal democracy, financial transparency and accountability in the working of the political parties. A political party which does not respect democratic principles in its internal working cannot be expected to respect those principles in the governance of the country. It cannot be dictatorship internally and democratic in its functioning outside”.
The CIC in a decision in 2007 explained the significance of the transparency of political parties: “…It would be facetious to argue that transparency is good for all state organs, but not so good for the political parties which control the most important of those organs. For example, it will be a fallacy to hold that transparency is good for the bureaucracy but not good enough for the political parties which control those bureaucracies through political executives”.
The respondent political have unhesitatingly stated that they were not public authorities and shamelessly refused to furnish information under RTI Act. The AICC and the BJP have asserted before CIC that they are not public authorities. The CPI(M) has disclosed some information to the Commission regarding allotment of land by the central government but has not conceded that it is public authority under the RTI Act. Interestingly, the CPI office bearers have taken a contradictory stand, while A.B. Bardhan has agreed that CPI is a public Authority, Sudhakar Reddy has taken the stand that political parties do not fall in the ambit of section 2(h) of RTI Act.
The allotment of large tracts of land in prime areas of Delhi either free of cost or at concessional rates, allotment of houses on rental basis on concessional rates, exemption from Income Tax u/s 13-A of the I.T. Act, free air time on All India Radio, free air time on DorDarshan and provisioning of free electoral rolls etc will amount to substantial funding by the state and brings political parties into the ambit of public authorities. The CIC finally and rightly held that INC, BJP, CPI(M), CPIO, NCP and BSP have been substantially financed by the Central Government under section 2(h)(ii) of the RTI Act.
Besides denying their public servant character, the political parties are getting united to challenge the CIC order before higher courts. The history shows that all parties, without exception denied the voters their right to know the antecedents of contesting candidates until the Supreme Court had intervened twice to reinforce that right in a PIL filed by Association for Democratic Reforms forcing the Parliament to enact an amendment to Representation of People Act a decade ago to provide statutory basis for right of voters created by judicial decision. They are again uniting to deny the accountability. It is reported that political parties are appealing to Delhi High Court challenging the CIC order. They may even take it to the Supreme Court. They have no moral, legal or constitutional right to deny the information to the people whose votes they seek to come into power. If they deny information to people they cannot claim to be public servants.
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