Satya Prakash is the name.
New Delhi, on July 26th.
The Supreme Court has agreed that political parties have a valid concern about sharing information about their private discussions.
“They are correct when they say that we should not be asked to reveal how we select our candidates,” said a group of judges led by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud while listening to public interest litigations (PILs) requesting to subject political parties to the transparency law.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, speaking for the Centre, explained to the Bench that the Supreme Court cannot use the Central Information Commission’s decision from June 2013 to require recognized political parties to follow the rules of the RTI Act.
“The CIC order cannot be used to ask the government to follow their official duties and bring political parties under the RTI,” Mehta said during a hearing on petitions filed by advocate Ashwini Upadhyay and the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR).
PV Dinesh from the Communist Party of India (Marxist) mentioned that the party does not oppose the RTI Act in terms of ensuring transparent financial information. Dinesh said that we cannot ask why a candidate was chosen and we cannot get information about how a party makes decisions.
Prashant Bhushan, a lawyer for the ADR, said that in 2013, the CIC made a decision that political parties receiving benefits from the government, such as tax exemptions and land, should follow the RTI rules to ensure transparency in the political system.
The court postponed the hearing to August 1 because the Attorney General R Venkataramani, who was handling the case, was out of town.
On June 3, 2013, the CIC decided that six political parties were considered “public authority” under the RTI Act and had to provide information to citizens. After that, Upadhyay and ADR went to the highest court to ask for the CIC decision to be put into action.
The Center disagreed with the PILs and said that political parties should not be included in the RTI Act.
