The Central Information Commission (CIC) has fixed November 21 for hearing on non-compliance by six political parties of its full-bench verdict dated June 3 last year bringing political parties under purview of Right to Information (RTI) Act.

In the notice issued on November 3, the CIC has noted that responses have been received only from four political parties viz. CPI(M), CPI, AICC and NCP. BJP and BSP have not responded at all.

After perusing the responses received, the CIC is satisfied under sub-section (2) of section 18 of the Act that there are reasonable grounds to inquire into the matter and accordingly, it has asked the parties to appear before the Commission either in person or through a duly authorised representative at 1600 hrs on November 21, and to produce all relevant documents/records relating to the action taken in pursuance of the directions contained in the Commission’s order dated June 03, 2013.

In the complaint filed by RTI activist Subhash Chandra Agarwal and others, the CIC had issued notices to the six political parties for non-compliance of Commission’s said order regarding CIC declaring these political parties as “Public Authority”.

After their failure to comply, the CIC had issued series of reminders and eventually a notice asking to show-cause within four weeks from September 10 as to why an inquiry should not be initiated in the matter of non-compliance of the Commission’s original order under section 18 of the Right to Information Act, 2005.

The CIC had warned the parties to take further notice that if they fail to respond within the prescribed time, the matter will be processed further on the strength of the material on record, in accordance with law.

The notices were issued to President\General Secretaries of Bharatiya Janata Party, Nationalist Congress Party, Bahujan Samaj Party, Communist Party of India (Marxist), Communist Party of India, and Indian National Congress.

The CIC had held on June 3, 2013 that the six political parties have been substantially financed by the Central Government under section 2(h)(ii) of the RTI Act. The criticality of the role being played by these Political Parties in our democratic set up and the nature of duties performed by them also point towards their public character, bringing them in the ambit of section 2(h), and as such they were public authorities under section 2(h) of the RTI Act.

Accordingly, these political parties were directed to designate Chief Public Information Officers (CPIOs) and the Appellate Authorities at their headquarters in six weeks time. The CPIOs so appointed were expected to respond to the RTI applications extracted in this order in four weeks time.

Besides, the Presidents/General Secretaries of these political parties were also directed to comply with the provisions of section 4(1) (b) of the RTI Act by way of making voluntary disclosures on the subjects mentioned in the said clause.