Political parties fail to attend RTI hearing

BHUBANESWAR: Representatives of the political parties didn’t attend the hearing of an RTI case here on Friday regarding the declaration of political parties as public authorities. A full bench of the State Information Commission (SIC) conducted the hearing of a case filed by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) to declare the 21 registered and recognised political parties as public authorities under section 2(h) of the RTI Act, 2005.

AAP submitted a memorandum before the SIC where its members said that the political parties should be directed to designate the Public Information Officers as per the provisions of the RTI Act. It also said that the political parties comply with suo motu disclosure as required under section 4(1) (b) of the RTI Act, 2005 within a limited time period.

Though the full bench discussed about the case with the AAP members, but could not finalise the decision as nobody from the other political parties attended the hearing. The next hearing would be conducted on August 23, SIC sources said.