Decide on foreign money for parties in 3 weeks: HC

The Delhi HC on Monday asked the home ministry to take a final decision on the issue of political parties receiving money from foreign entities, in violation of law, within three weeks.

Updated on: Feb 5, 2013, 02:42:45 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The Delhi high court on Monday asked home ministry to take final decision on the issue of political parties receiving money from foreign entities in violation of law within three weeks after the Election Commission expressed its inability to act against the parties.

The Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) in 2012 had found that both Congress and BJP had received money from Vedanta Group, a company registered in London and a foreign entity and sought action against them from the court.

The Representation of People's Act prohibits the parties from receiving any contribution from foreign or government sources but does not give powers to the commission to initiate legal action for any violation.

The Foreign Contribution Regulatory Act makes receive foreign contribution without home ministry's approval a criminal offence.

The political parties are required to submit their annual financial statements to the commission every year if they want to seek income tax rebate on any contribution of more than Rs 20,000.

But, the commission has no powers to investigate the source of the money.

"It is for the union government to investigate if there is any offence committed by the political party, or the public sector undertakings or the corporate, and to what penal action is called for or has been taken for any violation noticed," the commission said in the affidavit filed before the court.

The commission suggestion to change rules to make political parties declare not having received foreign contribution has not been accepted by the government as yet.

Giving credence to ADR claim in the public interest litigation, the commission had forwarded the statement of records of political parties since 2004 to the home ministry, mandated to regulate foreign contributions, and asked the ministry to take "action as may be deemed proper".

A reminder was sent in January but the ministry failed to respond.

In an affidavit submitted in the court, the ministry said that response on the alleged violation has been received from the Congress while the BJP was yet to reply.

Prashant Bhushan, lawyer for the NGO, argued that the court was dragging its feet because the political parties that run the government have themselves committed serious criminal offences. He sought an independent inquiry as there was an inherent conflict of interest in this case.

Concluding the hearing, the court issued asked the government, the election commission and the two recipients of foreign contribution the Congress and the BJP to submit its reply within three weeks.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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