Current Affairs Brain Booster for UPSC & State PCS Examination

Topic: Electoral Bonds and Right to Information Act

Why in News?

• The Central Information Commission, the highest appellate authority under the Right to Information Act, has ruled that there is no public interest in disclosing details of electoral bond scheme donors. The body rejected a plea for making the information public, saying it will violate provisions of the RTI Act itself.

Background

• The Commission upheld the arguments of the State Bank of India (SBI) that the information sought by Pune-based RTI activist Vihar Durve was personal in nature held by it in fiduciary capacity.
• Durve had sought details of donor and donee of electoral bonds from the books of accounts of State Bank of India branches designated to sell these bonds.
• After the denial of information by the SBI, Durve approached the commission where he argued that the SBI was supposed to uphold public interest and not the interest of political parties.
• He said the SBI was not in fiduciary capacity with any political party and hence has no legal duty to maximize the benefit of any public or private sector bank; there was no relationship of "trust" between them.
• Durve had asked that the information was to be disclosed in the interest of transparency and accountability.
• The SBI, citing Electoral Bonds Scheme, 2018, said information about buyers of bonds shall remain confidential and will not be shared with any authority for any purpose.

Electoral Bond Scheme

• The government had notified the Electoral Bond Scheme in 2018.
• It was touted as an alternative to cash donations and to ensure transparency in political funding.
• As per the provisions of the scheme, electoral bonds may be purchased by an Indian citizen or a company incorporated or established in India.
• Only political parties registered under Section 29A of the Representation of the Peoples Act, 1951 and has secured no less than one per cent votes in the last Lok Sabha elections are eligible to receive electoral bonds.
• The electoral accounts are issued by the SBI. The electoral bonds can be purchased in the months of January, April, July and October.
• Political parties are allotted a verified account by the Election Commission and all the electoral bond transactions are done through this account only.
• Non-disclosure of names of donors would add to the woes of the Indian democracy, say critics.

RTI Act

• The RTI Act mandates that any Indian citizen is free to seek any information from any public or government authority and the authority is under liability to respond to such a request within a period of 30 days from the date of receiving such an application. However, the information sought must not be related to defence, national security, or personal details.
• Before the advent of the RTI act, the disclosure of information in India was restricted by the Official Secrets Act and some other special laws. The RTI Act relaxed many such laws in the country.
• As per section 4 of RTI Act, it is obligatory on every public authority to provide as much information suo moto to the public at regular intervals through various means of communications, including internet, so that the public have access to maximum information with minimum resort to the use of this Act to obtain information.
• The RTI act has also made it mandatory for computerizing the records for the purpose of wide spread relay so that any information sought by the public can be processed quickly aided by the information categorization.
• Section 8 of the RTI Act prohibits sharing of third-party information without written consent of the third party. However, the section also says that the information can be shared if the information officer is convinced that it would serve “larger public interest”.