Parties and Accountability
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: July 09 2015 -
Accountability entails responsibility to be adopted by those representing the government which include civil servants and politicians.
While there have been demands by pressure groups that those in helm of affairs should maintain accountability and transparency under a set rule, political parties have their own convenient ways of turning a blind eye to collective decay in efforts to set the standard on financial transparency.
Perhaps, it is under such circumstances, the Supreme Court on Tuesday sought response from all national political parties on why they should not be brought within ambit of Right to Information (RTI) to make them more accountable to public.
The Apex Court issued notice to all six national political parties including BJP, Congress, BSP, CPI and CPI (M) seeking their response to declare them public authorities under the transparency law.
The bench also issued notice to the Centre and the Election Commission of India asking them to make their stand clear on bringing political parties under the RTI Act.
The prime argument has been based on certain provision under that income tax law that says contribution made by an individual or company to a political party is deductible from the total income of the assesee.
This provision is exclusively applicable to the political parties and is suggestive of indirect financing of the political parties by the State.
The development followed the petitioner’s contention that national parties are virtually funded by the state as they have been exempted from filing income tax returns.
The petition filed had also claimed that political parties enjoyed a stronghold over their elected members of Parliament and the state legislative assemblies under Schedule 10 of the Constitution, which makes it compulsory for members of either Houses of Parliament or state legislatures to abide by the directions of their parties, failing which they stand to be disqualified.
The assumption under which the petitioner filed the RTI application also comfortably implies that there have been increasing cases of major political parties flouting certain financial ethics and norms that should have ideally govern the parties with regard to handling their own resources.
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