RTI, Politics & Judiciary:

July 14/2015 : In this perceived age of transparency and accountability, there is no doubt that political parties should be above board. They must seem to be open to and under public scrutiny. The Supreme Court intervention recently, based on a Public Interest Litigation seeking the Center’s view on the demand to make political parties accountable under the Right to Information Act (RTI), must be viewed in this light. The flip side, however, is that if and when parties are open to RTI provisions, public enthusiasm is such that it can open a Pandora’s box and turn out to be a sure recipe for disaster. There would be no end to queries and answers.

However, a new situation has developed in the meanwhile in which judges of the Supreme Court and High Courts seem hesitant to face RTI queries pertaining to their own health related bills that are paid for from the state exchequer.

As far the political part is considered, a logical question is how far can parties go in this respect. Political parties in India came into being as voluntary engagement during and after the Freedom movement. It was essentially a passion for independence from foreign rule and probably a desire for national uplift that brought people into the folds of various political parties. Having had no violent struggles to face, most of India’s political outfits inherited an informal style of functioning that, probably in all cases, centered around the whims of inpiduals and in few other cases around vague ideologies. As yet, there has been no organised or transparent mechanism to fund parties or elections in this country. Like any organisation, parties too need funds to function. And like everything else in India, our corporates prefer to pay the politicians clandestinely and the politicians are happy to accept huge quantities of money for which no accounts need be maintained.

Ideally, members should fund the party’s programmes and election campaigns. This, however, is not practical in a nation of nearly one and a half billion people, all of whom are supposedly wedded to the democratic process but also most of them are poor. The second option is to seek and accept donations. Transparency has been a casualty in this respect, also for the reason that funds in substantial measures come to parties not from the members or the working class but from those having easy money and unaccounted wealth. Obviously, in return, they expect favors not due to them.

This presents its own problems in respect of transparency. Even the figures cited and submitted to the Election Commission post election do not necessarily reflect the scenario in its entirety. The disconnect between perceptions, principles and performance is all too clear. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) that came into being as an offshoot of the anti-corruption movement in Delhi is a typical example of how principles do not match with performance. Hefty funds were seen to have been transferred to it from abroad under still-not-explained circumstances from so-called ‘donors’ in the run-up to the last elections. While the party might have plugged the loopholes to escape eventual EC scrutiny, the fact remains that there were ‘under-the-cover’ operations on behalf of not only that party but also the BJP and the Congress in Delhi. Clearly this, most likely, is the case with every other party, both regional and national, that functions in this country. As far as one can check, every democratic system in the world has grey areas in this sphere.

It only goes to show political functioning in this country, like elsewhere, is practically impossible without unaccounted funds playing a major role. The Indian political system, like such systems elsewhere, is far from perfect. Like it or not, a certain amount of licentiousness is inbuilt in democratic functioning. Democracy runs by consensus and not by rules alone. There lies its strength and weakness. America has an open system of fund raising for the presidential race, but the fact remains that vested interests and the super rich are directly involved in the process. They bind front-runners even before the start of the election process to their whims and fancies. That implies preferential treatment is meted out to them in a vastly different process. But it exists there too.

The PIL in question, brought forward for the Association for Democratic Rights (ADR) and arguments being brought forward by the likes of counsel and social activist Prashant Bhushan stressed that political parties should comply with the Central Information Commission ruling of June, 2013. The CIC had identified political parties as “public authority” under the RTI Act. This means that they received funds and facilities from government and got tax exemptions. This “required of them to disclose details about the sources of their funds as also expenditure”. In response, political parties in general could not stomach the idea and cited practical difficulties. They also cited that the funds they received from government were just a fraction of the total costs involved in running a party or holding elections.

Every system, including RTI, has its loopholes through which people can be fooled. If at all the political parties are included in the RTI ambit, truth could still be a casualty. RTI provisions are already being undercut by the bureaucracy as well as the judiciary by use of their deft fingers. The whole truth is still a mirage.

This statement is even harsher to digest when we look at the same judges openly interpreting the law in one way for others but blatantly different for themselves. When a  RTI activist asked details of medical bills of judges that have been paid for by the government, the Supreme Court was clear in its opinion that those private data should not be put up in public domain. Setting an example is not the forte of we Indians. We always want the other person to do the correct thing but we ourselves must be allowed to do what we need to.