MPs refuse to release details of wealth under RTI

Transparency in public functioning has received a setback with top-most functionaries - Members of Parliament (MPs) - refusing to voluntarily disclose their wealth under the Right To Information (RTI) Act. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Apr 13, 2013, 01:45:46 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Transparency in public functioning has received a setback with top-most functionaries - Members of Parliament (MPs) - refusing to voluntarily disclose their wealth under the Right To Information (RTI) Act.

Both the houses refused to part with the information on assets and liabilities of MPs citing ruling of the Ethics Committees of their respective houses.

"The Committee on Ethics did not favour posting the asset details of Rajya Sabha members on its website," the Rajya Sabha secretariat said in the RTI reply to Subhash Aggarwal.

Aggarwal had asked about the steps taken by the Parliament to put asset details of the MPs on website and action taken on MPs for hiding information in their wealth declaration.

The MPs are required to submit information about their family's movable and immovable property and liabilities to any financial institution or to the government within 90 days of taking oath to their respective houses.

The apparent reason for the MPs refusal to part with their wealth statement, which is available to people when they file nominations, appears to be fear of disqualification.

Providing wrong information at the time of filing nomination papers does not disqualify the person from contesting polls.

"The law does not provide for disqualification on this ground. A case can be registered against the person who has provided wrong information," said MK Mendaratta, legal advisor with the Election Commission.

But, if wrong information is given to Parliament and there is complaint, the chairpersons of the respective houses have powers to initiate action, including disqualification, against the member after an inquiry.

"There is an in-house mechanism to taking action," said Subhash C Kashyap, former secretary general of Lok Sabha.

Putting their wealth statement in public domain can result in complaints from political opponents, many MPs fear.

The RTI reply also shows that three members of Lok Sabha including Madhu Koda accused in corruption and money laundering cases, including disproportionate assets, Harsh Vardhan and Putul Kumari have not disclosed their asset and liabilities statements so far.

Koda was exempted from providing information by Speaker Meira Kumar on a request made by him, the RTI reply revealed.

In Rajya Sabha, five MPs - Ajay Sancheti, Darshan Singh Yadav, Munquad Ali, Narendra Budania and Pradeep Kumar Balmuchu - have not provided this information, the reply says.

The two houses have, however, failed to take action against them as provided under rules and have been sending reminders to them to submit their wealth statements.

The MPs were first to come under public disclosure mechanism through wealth statement at time of filing nomination.

And, its positive impact resulted in the governments putting annual asset and liability statement of bureaucrats and ministers in public domain.

The judiciary also followed suit. When MPs were asked to follow similar practice, they refused. Their wealth can now be known only at time of elections, if they contest.

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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