Exclusion from Public Scrutiny, a Barrier to Accountability: Link between Political Parties and RTI Act

  • Devansh Pandit
  • Show Author Details
  • Devansh Pandit

    Student at Symbiosis Law School, Noida, India

  • img Download Full Paper

Abstract

The Right to Information Act, 2005, was a landmark legislation for the Indian legislative, executive and judicial structure. The Act, in its objective, safeguards the citizen’s right to secure access to information under the control of “public authorities”, in order to promote transparency and accountability in the working of every public authority. “Public authority” is further defined in Section (2)(h) of the RTI act as being an authority, which is either created by the legislative structures of the Centre or respective states, or by notification or order of the appropriate government. One of the most contentious legal developments involving the RTI Act, 2005 is whether national and state political parties classify as “public authorities” under the Act, thereby, coming under the purview of the legislation. The paper would focus its research on how political parties appropriately classify as “public authorities” by analysing the direct & indirect legal, economic & legislative benefits that such parties receive from the state itself. It would focus on the negligible implementation of the guidelines passed by Central Information Commission in its 2013 judgment, which brought the six national political parties under the purview of the Act. The paper would also explore the international narrative in adducing Right to Information as a fundamental right. It would also elaborate the limitations of the 2013 guidelines of the Central Information Commission, by virtue of there being no penal consequences on the said parties for their inaction. Conclusively, it would offer solutions to the contentious issue of inclusion of political parties under the ambit of public authorities.

Type

Research Paper

Information

International Journal of Law Management and Humanities, Volume 4, Issue 2, Page 2056 - 2069

DOI: http://doi.one/10.1732/IJLMH.26457

Creative Commons

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution -NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits remixing, adapting, and building upon the work for non-commercial use, provided the original work is properly cited.

Copyright

Copyright © IJLMH 2021