The Central Information Commission (CIC) has sent notice to six national political parties, including the Congress, the BJP, Communist Party of India-Marxist, Communist Party of India, Nationalist Congress Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party for ignoring its order to appoint information officers and entertain RTIs. The notice gave the parties a four-week time to explain the non-compliance.
The CIC, a quasi-judicial body, on a decision taken in June last year over an appeal by RTI activist Subhash Chandra Agarwal and the Association of Democratic Reforms’ Anil Bairwal, declared the national parties as “public authorities”. This brought the parties under ambit of the Right to Information Act (RTI) and the parties were directed to appoint an information officer within six weeks.
