You can seek information regarding funding of political parties — and how the money is being utilised — from the IT department using your Right to Information, reports Chetan Chauhan.
You can seek information regarding funding of political parties — and how the money is being utilised — from the Income Tax department using your Right to Information, says the Central Information Commission.
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The RTI watchdog’s ruling could spell trouble for the political parties, who, except the Left, are opposed to the idea of revealing their financial details.
The parties have to file annual returns on their funding and utilisation of money with the IT department but the information cannot be disclosed under the IT Act. Submitting details about donations received with the Election Commission is a voluntary requirement.
But Information Commissioner A.N. Tiwari on Tuesday ruled that the RTI Act overrules all restrictions regarding dissemination of information in different laws. It would be in public interest to provide information about parties, which control “political executives” to strengthen fading faith of citizens in the political leaders, the CIC order said.
On a RTI application seeking income tax details of all political parties since 2002, Tiwari directed the I-T department to provide copies of income-tax returns and assessment orders of the parties to the applicant, Association for Democratic Reforms, within six weeks. It, however, denied information about PAN cards of the parties fearing its misuse.
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Of all the political parties, only CPI and CPM have given no-objection for sharing their I-T information. The BSP said such disclosure won’t be in larger public interest and feared its misuse by rival parties. The Congress, NCP and BJP had similar objections, saying sharing of I-T return would amount to infringement of privacy.
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Of all the political parties, only CPI and CPM have given no-objection for sharing their I-T information. The BSP said such disclosure won’t be in larger public interest and feared its misuse by rival parties. The Congress, NCP and BJP had similar objections, saying sharing of I-T return would amount to infringement of privacy.
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DMK said the information was confidential as it included details of commercial activities, a view supported by the Congress. SP said disclosing the information would be prejudicial to the case related to disproportionate asset in Supreme Court against party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and his family.
But Tiwari cited various SC judgments and views of the National Commission to Review Working of the Constitution to state that there was a need to bring in transparency in the financial functioning of the parties. “There is a widespread concern about a hyphenated relationship developing between party finance and political corruption,” Tiwari said. In absence of any law for parties to disclose the sources of funding, the CIC explained that the only way citizens can get details was through IT returns.
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.
