NEW DELHI: Political parties claim to be public representatives but do not want to come under public scrutiny. In a hearing before the Central Information Commission (CIC) some parties came up with several creative excuses to exempt themselves from coming under the ambit of the RTI Act . These ranged from expressing concern that revealing names of donors might endanger the contributors’ lives, or that it would impact their decision-making process.

The responses from political parties came during a CIC hearing on an application filed by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and activist S C Agrawal. ADR had sought information related to donations and contributions received by political parties, which had initially been denied by outfits claiming they were not public authorities. The CIC full bench has reserved its decision.

On Thursday’s hearing — the second and final one in the case — Congress representatives were conspicuous by their absence. Representatives of BJP, BSP, NCP and CPM were present.

While CPM said that it was willing to make its contributors public, it objected to being designated a public authority. The party said 40% of its funds come from its cadre, which is slightly over 10 lakh across the country accrued from individual membership of Rs 2 annually, while the rest come from 'levy' and donations and, hence it was not feasible to give such details.

NCP said that revealing the list of contributors could endanger their lives and that public interest was not a criterion to declare a body public authority.

BSP claimed that there was not direct or indirect funding by the government and the facilities like free air time, buildings at cheap rents and other facilities do not constitute funding.

BJP also fought tooth and nail against being brought under the transparency law. A similar argument was made by other parties but they were even more strident.

In the last hearing on September 26, CPI was the only party that had expressed its willingness to part with the financial information but said that internal discussions should not be made public as it would affect their public stance.

ADR has argued that political parties enjoy benefits and facilities from the public exchequer. Political parties get substantially financed by a very large amount by getting tax exemption on all their income. In addition, all the major political parties have also been provided facilities for residential and official use by the Directorate of Estates (DoE).

They have been given offices and accommodations at prime locations like Akbar Road, Raisina Road, Chanakyapuri and are charged only a token sum as rent or dues. ``These facilities are not just provided to them at marginal rates but their maintenance, modernization, renovation and construction is also done at state expense. A large sum of money is also spent by the Election Commission of India on political parties for giving electoral rolls. Doordarshan and AIR also provide free broadcast facilities to the parties. If closely seen, the money spent on that basis actually runs into crores. State funding is also given for publicity of parties during elections,’’ said Anil Bairwal, an ADR member.

The top five political parties enjoy income in crores. According to ADR, incomes of the parties between 2004-05 and 2010-11 showed that Congress had the maximum income with Rs 2,008 crore, followed by BJP (Rs 994 crore). BSP was ranked third with Rs 484 crore, CPM (Rs 417 crore) and SP (Rs 279 crore).

