Rti applicability

It may not come under Section 2 Definition of  R.T.I. Act, 2005. Any how you file application under Act, 2005 for information.  Political Parties case C.I.C . Judgement is a land mark. L.I.C. other Government bodies have some stakes and company holds 35% holding.

(h) “public authority” means any authority or body or institution of self- government established or constituted-

(a) by or under the Constitution;

(b) by any other law made by Parliament;

(c) by any other law made by State Legislature;

(d) by notification issued or order made by the appropriate Government,
and includes any-

(i) body owned, controlled or substantially financed;

(ii) non-Government organisation substantially financed,
directly or indirectly by funds provided by the appropriate Government;

(i) “record” includes-

(a) any document, manuscriptt and file;

(b) any microfilm, microfiche and facsimile copy of a document;

(c) any reproduction of image or images embodied in such microfilm (whether enlarged or not); and

(d) any other material produced by a computer or any other device;

(j) “right to information” means the right to information accessible under this Act which is held by or under the control of any public authority and includes the right to-

(i) inspection of work, documents, records;

(ii) taking notes, extracts or certified copies of documents or records;

(iii) taking certified samples of material;

(iv) obtaining information in the form of diskettes, floppies, tapes, video cassettes or in any other electronic mode or through printouts where such information is stored in a computer or in any other device;

The Right To Information Act is applicable to all constitutional authorities, including the executive, legislature and judiciary; any institution or body established or constituted by an act of Parliament or a state legislature. It is also defined in the Act that bodies or authorities established or constituted by order or notification of appropriate government including bodies "owned, controlled or substantially financed" by government, or non-Government organisations "substantially financed, directly or indirectly by funds" provided by the government are also covered in the Act.

Private bodies

Private bodies are not within the Act's ambit directly. In a landmark decision of Sarbajit Roy versus DERC, the Central Information Commission also reaffirmed that privatised public utility companies continue to be within the RTI Act- their privatisation not withstanding.

Political parties

The Central Information Commission (CIC) has held that the political parties are public authorities and answerable to citizens under RTI Act. The CIC, a quasi-judicial body, has said that six national parties:- Congress, BJP, NCP, CPI(M), CPI and BSP have been substantially funded indirectly by the central government and they have the character of public authority under the RTI Act as they perform public functions .However, the political parties opposed this ruling. On 1st August 2013, the Union Cabinet approved draft amendments to the RTI Act that would nullify an order of the CIC bringing the six national political parties under the orbit of the Act. On 12 August, 2013, the Congress Party tabled RTI Amendment Bill 2013 in Lok Sabha to keep political parties out of RTI ambit.

kriti