Info plea on electoral reforms to be placed before top offices: CIC

[ganpat1956]

New Delhi, Sept 29: The suggestions made by an RTI applicant on electoral reforms, while seeking information on poll expenses from the Election Commission, may be considered by the Law Ministry, the CIC has recommended.

K N Joshi, a Delhi-resident, had filed a RTI application with the EC seeking details about the election expenditures. He also queried about the sources of money being spent by the political parties and audit of poll expenditure incurred by the government.

The EC, while replying to specific queries of Joshi, observed that RTI Act did not confer on him the right to seek replies on his interpretations on different issues, following which the matter was placed before the Central Information Commission.

Disposing of the application, Chief Information Commissioner Wajahat Habibullah in a recent order noted that the suggestions made by Joshi could be considered by Ministry of Law and Justice for considering issues of electoral reforms.

"We find that there are number of suggestions on electoral reforms and considerable work has been done by appellant on calculating investment and returns in the present election process," Habibullah observed, while adding that a copy of the same could also be submitted to Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee for his perusal.

Joshi had filed, on August 17 last year, an application with EC in reply to which the latter had said that many of the questions asked were beyond its jurisdiction and hence such information be sought from the Law Ministry.

The CIC found the EC at fault for not transferring his plea to the Law Ministry within five days, as stipulated under the provisions of the RTI Act.

Zee News - Info plea on electoral reforms to be placed before top offices: CIC