ADR’s appeal to CIC for declaring Political Parties as Public Authorities

Political Parties receive government funds, directly or indirectly, under following heads:

·         Tax Exemption provided to political parties

-          All the political parties have been claiming tax exemptions on 100% of their incomes, under the provisions of section 13A of the Income Tax Act.

-          The total tax exemptions received by six national parties during the 3 financial years beginning from FY 2006 to FY 2009 is Rs. 510.02 crores. The maximum tax exemption during this time period (FY 2006-2009) was received by INC, which is Rs. 300.92 crores, followed by BJP that enjoyed the concession of Rs. 141.25 crores.

-          The tax rebates enjoyed by four other national political parties during the same time period are as follows- BSP: Rs. 39.84 crores, CPI(M): Rs. 18.13 crores, CPI: Rs. .24 crores, NCP: Rs. 9.64 crores.

·         Free air time on Doordarshan and AIR to political parties during elections 

-          All political parties are provided free airtime on Doordarshan and All India Radio (AIR) during elections for canvassing purposes. Based on the data received under RTI we have been able to calculate only the revenue forgone by DD and AIR during LS 2009 elections and  the elections in the  5 states that were held during Jan-Mar 2012.

-          DD and AIR have different commercial rates for prime time and non prime time telecast and broadcast. We have conservatively calculated the revenue forgone, by the Government, by using the non-prime time commercial rates. Therefore, the actual revenue forgone by the Prasar Bharti would have been higher. We have used the conservative rates of non-prime time in calculating the revenue foregone by the state. The revenue foregone by the state actually could be much higher.

-          The free airtime provided to INC during the above mentioned two sets of elections is Rs. 8.42 crores followed by BJP that got airtime of worth Rs. 6.38 crores. For other political parties the corresponding figures are- BSP: Rs. 3.96 crores, CPI(M): Rs. 2.77 crores, CPI: Rs. 2.62 crores and NCP: Rs. 2.89 crores.

·         State funded electoral rolls provided to political parties during elections

-       Under the provisions of rules 11 and 12 of the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960 two copies of the Electoral roll, one printed copy and another in CD are supplied to recognized political parties, free of cost, after draft and final publications.

-       It is normally understood that the Government spends only a trivial amount on the free supply of electoral rolls. However, according to our calculations the money spent is significant. We filed RTIs to various states in order to ascertain the cost per voter roll during the 2009 elections. We took a sample of 10 constituencies consisting of a range of constituencies varying from small to large constituencies.

-       One assumption we made was that the political parties received copies of electoral rolls only of those places where they actually fielded their candidates. Based on our calculations, the total amount spent by government, only during Lok Sabha elections of 2009, in providing electoral rolls to the six national political parties stands at Rs. 8.9 crores.

-       The maximum amount was spent on BSP i.e. Rs. 2.82 crores because it fielded the maximum number of candidates (500) during the LS elections of 2009. The corresponding figures for other national political parties are as follows- INC: Rs. 2.48 crores (440 candidates), BJP: Rs. 2.45 crores (433 candidates), CPI(M): Rs. .46 crores (82 candidates), CPI: Rs. .31 crores (56 candidates) and NCP: Rs. .38 crores (68 candidates).

·         State funding in the form of government land/offices provided to political parties

-          As per Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India, there is a well-defined policy for allotment of land to the political parties. Political parties, accordingly, have been allotted large sized plots of lands in Delhi.

-          We have attempted to value these plots of land using highly conservative rate taken from category ‘B’ of Delhi Circle Rates of Nov’ 2011. The real market rates are substantially higher than this category ‘B’ rate taken by us.

-          INC has been allotted the maximum land area of 18737 sq. m. followed by BJP that possesses 10410.8 sq. m. of land. The corresponding area figures of other national political parties are as follows- CPI(M): 3732 sq. m., CPI: 1500 sq m., NCP: 1000 sq. m. and BSP: 2000 sq. m.

-          Our calculations of these plots of land based on the above mentioned highly conservative rate show that the value of land held by INC stands at Rs. 231 crores and the worth of BJP held land is Rs. 117.35 crores. The values of land possessed by other parties are as follows-  CPI(M): Rs. 50.75 Crores, CPI: Rs. 16.91 Crores, NCP: Rs. 13.6 Crores and BSP: Rs. 27.20 Crores.

-          The cumulative value of the land that is in possession of these six national parties stands at Rs. 456.91 crores.

The details of above arguments have been provided in the elaborate report attached.

It is quite evident from these arguments that political parties receives substantial funding from government and hence they should be declared as public authorities in order to bring them under the purview of RTI.