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Funding of parties can come under RTI Act: Arun Jaitley -Mohua Chatterjee & Dhananjay Mahapatra
-The Times of India


NEW DELHI: BJP leader and cricket administrator Arun Jaitley on Tuesday said the Central Information Commission (CIC) ruling bringing political parties within the ambit of Right to Information (RTI) Act was per se not wrong as long as it applied to their funding.

However, he was quick to introduce caveats. "The CIC logic behind applying RTI Act to political parties is that they are given land at concessional rates. But so many organizations, NGOs, media houses have been given land at concessional rates. Should it not apply across the board to all such private bodies?" he asked.

Personally, he feels that the transparency law could be applied to political parties and other organizations, including sports bodies, concerning their accounts and decisions. But, it could not be extended to include the decision-making process of the political parties and sports bodies, he clarified.

This means Jaitley, who heads the Delhi District Cricket Association (DDCA) and is a key cog in the management of Board for Control of Cricket in India (BCCI), favoured bringing the accounts and funds of the world's richest cricket board under the purview of the RTI Act.

But the CIC's decision remained the focal point of his arguments. "The political parties had been brought under the ambit of the RTI Act through an interpretation given by the CIC. The reasoning appears to be wrong. The issue needs a larger public debate and a wide deliberation in Parliament," Jaitley told ToI.

But, he had no difficulty in conceding that funding of political parties could be brought under the purview of RTI Act. "Because of the public character of political parties, there is nothing wrong in bringing the RTI scanner on their funding and accounts, which can be made public. It happens in all western countries," he said.

The rumblings over the affairs of the BCCI and whether it was a private body or a public authority had started nearly eight years ago when Zee Tele-films had dragged the Board to court claiming that it was a public body having monopoly over the game of cricket, which has become a profession.

The BCCI had taken a stand that it was a private body shorn of any control from the Union government, either administrative or financial. But, the Centre had said that the activities of the Board are like that of a public body and not that of a private club.

The Supreme Court's fie-judge bench had ruled that: "It cannot be denied that the Board does discharge some duties like the selection of an Indian cricket team, controlling the activities of the players and others involved in the game of cricket. These activities can be said to be akin to public duties or State functions and if there is any violation of any constitutional or statutory obligation or rights of other citizens, the aggrieved party may not have a relief by way of a petition under Article 32.

Though it denied the citizens to get relief against the cricket board through a petition directly to the apex court, it made the BCCI answerable before the High Courts. With Jaitley taking a stand about opening up the accounts of the BCCI for public scrutiny, the long awaited air of transparency may soon blow inside the board which had for long been very tight lipped about its affairs.