CIC fights bias charge in sending notices to political parties

NEW DELHI: The Central Information Commission will issue fresh notices in the names of leaders of political parties after activist RK Jain alleged that the Commission’s registrar in an earlier notice had dropped all names except that of Congress president Sonia Gandhi.
“If specific name(s) of the respondent(s) is/are mentioned in the complaint, such name(s) shall figure out in the notices issued by the registrar,” a full bench of the Commission comprising information commissioners Sridhar Acharyulu, Bimal Julka and Sudhir Bhargava said.It also granted time to Congress and NCP to file their responses, besides giving another opportunity to the respondent political parties — BJP, CPI(M), CPI and BSP — which did not participate in the hearing.
“The complaints filed by R K Jain for non-compliance of orders of the Commission against six national political parties will be heard on the next date of hearing. Other complaints will be heard separately on the same day,” he said rejecting the intervention applications.
The bench is hearing a complaint from Jain, alleging his queries to political parties seeking details of donations, finances, internal elections etc were not responded to, which was a violation of the RTI Act. In his complaint, Jain has alleged that registrar M K Sharma had adopted double standards in issuing notice to Sonia Gandhi “by name” as Congress president while the names of Rajnath Singh, Prakash Karat, Sharad Pawar, Mayawati and S Sudhakar Reddy have been omitted though the complaints named them specifically.
The full bench of the Commission headed by the then Chief Information Commissioner Satyananda Mishra had on June 3, 2013 brought six national parties Congress, BJP, NCP, BSP, CPI and CPM under the ambit of RTI on the premise that they are substantially funded by the government in the form of cheap land for offices, and tax concessions.