Now, regional parties face RTI onslaught

The Central Information Commission's order bringing six national political parties under the RTI ambit has opened a Pandora's box for the regional parties. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Jun 16, 2013, 01:00:15 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The Central Information Commission's order bringing six national political parties under the RTI ambit has opened a Pandora's box for the regional parties.

They have been receiving hordes of application seeking information since the June 3 CIC order.

Most of the applications have been filed with an aim to get regional parties declared as public authorities under RTI by state information commissions (SCICs) as the CIC has done for Congress, BJP, BSP, CPI, CPIM and NCP.

"We have received about a dozen RTI applications in the last 10 days or so," said an office in-charge at Janata Dal (United) office at Jantar Mantar, oblivious of the fact that the CIC's covered only national parties and not state parties.

Biswajit Mohanty, an Odisha based wildlife activist, was the first to file an RTI application with Biju Janata Dal (BJD) seeking information about party funding.

On refusal to provide information by the party, Mohanty plans to file an appeal with Odisha State Information Commission to declare BJD a public authority under the RTI Act.

Several other RTI activists in the state have also filed information applications with BJP. "We have received many applications," said a person, who did not identify himself at BJD's office in Bhuvaneshwar.

In Jammu and Kashmir, a group of RTI activists have separate RTI applications with three state level parties --- National Conference, Peoples Democratic Front and J&K National Panthers Party --- seeking information on funding, indirect benefit from the state government and expenses for the last five years.

Although the Central RTI law does not apply to J&K, the activists say they want the parties to come under the ambit of the state's information law like the CIC has brought political parties under RTI ambit elsewhere.

Samajwadi party may have felt initial solace of not been covered by the CIC order but activists have filed applications with its office in Lucknow to bring it under RTI other political parties in the state --- BSP, BJP and BSP.

"We will file appeal with the state information commission if the information is not provided," said Shailender Kumar an Allahabad based RTI activist.

Even though the CIC gave political parties six weeks to implement it order some activists appear to be in a hurry. Kashinath Shetve, a former government employee, filed an RTI application with BJP in Goa two days after the CIC order.

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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