New Delhi: Government will convene an all-party meeting on Tuesday to firm up a view on the contentious issues as all political parties agitated over plans to bring them under the ambit of Right To Information Act and the recent Supreme Court judgement on disqualification of lawmakers. A bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha on Monday to keep political parties out of the ambit of the RTI Act and negate a Central Information Commission (CIC) order to this effect.
The Right to Information (Amendment) Bill, 2013 seeks to insert an explanation in Section 2 of the Act which states that any association or body of individuals registered or recognized as political party under the Representation of the People Act, 1951 will not be considered a public authority.
The CIC order had termed Congress, Bharatiya Janata Party, the Bahujan Samaj Party, the Nationalist Congress Party, the CPI and the CPI-M as political authorities.
In an all-party meeting called before the beginning of the Monsoon Session of Parliament, parties cutting across ideologies had opposed the July 10 verdict of the apex court that had struck down a provision in the electoral law that protects a convicted lawmaker from disqualification on the ground of pendency of appeal in higher courts.
Bureau Report
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