Sunil Gatade
The Central Information Commission has stirred a hornet’s nest in the political class of the country, which boasts of being world’s largest democracy.
The landmark order of the CIC bringing political parties under the ambit of the Right to Information Act has literally come as a bolt from the blue for it at a time when the stock of things political is going down drastically.
In a ruling to ensure transparency in the functioning of political parties, the CIC earlier this week held that the parties are public authorities and answerable to citizens under RTI Act.
The Commission, a quasi-judicial body, has said six national parties Congress, BJP, NCP, CPI-M, CPI and BSP have been substantially funded indirectly by the central government and they have the character of public authority under the RTI Act as they perform public functions.
The crux of the order is that the parties will be answerable to the citizens regarding their source of funding, how they spend money and choice of candidates for elections, among other issues. CIC held that political parties “affect the lives of the citizens, directly or indirectly in every conceivable way and are continuously engaged in performing public duty. It is, therefore, important that they become accountable to public”.
The order has come at a time when a growing unease over the state of affairs dominated by politics and politicians is being witnessed in the middle class, the youth and the intellegensia and is acutely reflected in the social media of a billion strong country.
The feeling in these sections is that ‘something is decaying in the state of Denmark’ and the politician is the villain.
Barring the BJP, which proclaims itself to be a party with a difference and sees itself as the ruling party sooner than later, all political parties including the Congress have found the order ‘fundamentally faulty’. BJP publicly talks of greater transparency, but privately and not so privately, raising all the objections being raised by parties from the Left to the Right.
The parties, which form the bedrock of Indian democracy, feel that the CIC has bit more than it could chew.
Congress, which brought the RTI soon after coming to power in May 2004 via the coalition route, has been the first to reject the CIC oder. Its contention is that such an “adventurist” approach would “harm” democractic institutions, a view virtually endorsed by the other national parties CPI(M), CPI, JD(U) and NCP.
These parties feel that getting political parties entangled in such unnecessary things will damage the demcratic process. Besides, they contend that this decision is based on a fundamental misconception about the role of political parties in a parliamentary democracy. “Political parties are not shops”, as JD-U chief Sharad Yadav put it.
Not without reason, the opponents of the CIC move insist that making political parties subject to RTI is to hand information commissioners and civil servants a powerful instrument of control over politicians.
Given the intense rivalry that marks Indian politics, RTI may also be used to embarrass other parties and settle scores, rather than to advance the public interest, goes their argument.
These opponents insist that political parties are more accountable and responsive to voters than any other institution as they have to face the people every five years.
Significantly, the Association for Democratic Reforms which petitioned the CIC on bringing political parties under the RTI Act, has made the opposite case: that lack of scrutiny had led to parties being able to accumulate unexplained wealth running into hundreds of crores of rupees.
There is a valid concern over party financing. There are almost certainly vast amounts of unaccounted money available to candidates and parties, and this is a major fount of corruption. But the solution to that problem does not lie in RTI disclosures or oversight by a state commission.
An expert hit the nail right on the head by raising a key concern. As India searches for a new accountability regime, it faces a delicate question.
Will new institutional and legal innovations lead to greater accountability, or to more regulatory chaos? “What else can you expect from a bunch of retired bureaucrats?”, was the caustic comment of a prominent politician not amused over the CIC action.
The Central Information Commissioners areappointed mainly from prominent retired bureaucrats.
The remark shows that the politician does not like the bureaucrat to lord over him or teach him a thing or two and that there was need to understand who is the boss.
Dismissing the CIC move, another politicianwryly pointed out that the order would be of no consequence in setting things right in political parties. He said that a quick look at the situation around would show that corruption has grown and not diminished after the RTI came into force in 2005 amid claims of ushering in more transparency and accountability.
While the idea is certain to go down well with many who consider parties as inevitably and intrinsically corrupt and corrupting, beholden to powerful special interests, and in urgent need of technical fixes or moral correctives, it is also deeply unwise, sections opposed to the move feel.
The contention of the opponents is that making political parties subject to RTI is to hand information commissioners and civil servants a powerful instrument of control over politicians. Given the intense rivalry that marks our politics, RTI may also be used to embarrass other parties and settle scores, rather than to advance the public interest.
How much correct or practical is the CIC order is a different issue altogether, but the fact is thatthe political class has rose in unison to oppose it. It appears a matter of time that the move will be scuttled, directly or indirectly.
May it be, but the CIC move has brought sharp focus on the way political parties are run and sooner or later it would usher in greater transperancy in the political arena. The CIC order has given a wake up call to the political class to mend its ways. If it fails to take note and get its act together, it could blame no one.
In the age of IPL, the growing feeling is that there is fixing in the Indian Political League too and therefore the controversial CIC order has brought a lot of churning, which is good for democracy. (PTI)
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