Intruding into political turf, can have grave consequences as the Central Information Commission (CIC) and the Supreme Court (SC) will know. The CIC order bringing political parties under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, and the SC’s rulings disqualifying convicted legislators and forbidding persons in jail from contesting elections, have attracted the near-unanimous ire of politicians. Little wonder, then, that Friday’s all-party meeting, convened to ensure the smooth running of Parliament’s upcoming monsoon session, saw otherwise squabbling politicians agree — with heartrending unison — on sending out a “strong message” to the CIC and the SC. The meeting chose to reassert the “supremacy of Parliament” but even this lofty, and inarguable, premise can barely disguise the attempt to escape scrutiny and accountability using Parliament as a fig-leaf.How did matters hit such a low? Who eroded Parliament’s stature? Politicians have only themselves to blame. The CIC ruling is a reflection of how political parties have refused to arm the Election Commission with more powers to monitor political funding.The contribution reports submitted by parties, accessed through RTI applications to the EC, is rudimentary yet reveal the scale of  information that is hidden. There is near unanimity among politicians and civil society that the huge cost of electioneering is the root cause of political corruption. Instead of addressing this, the move to amend the RTI Act reeks of a conflict of interest that could have been better resolved if parties chose a third entity, the Supreme Court, to adjudicate instead of Parliament.It is not clear how Parliament will respond to the SC’s interventions in fighting criminalisation of politics. Will it be a “sense of the house” conveying Parliament’s disappointment against judicial intervention into legislative turf? Politicians’ discomfiture with the judiciary peaked with the 1973 Kesavananda Bharti judgment which reaffirmed that Parliament did not have the power’s to alter the basic structure of the Constitution. When the government appointed Justice AN Ray to succeed then Chief Justice SM Sikri, superseding three senior judges, an era of political interference in judicial appointments began. With Friday’s all-party meeting supporting the government’s plan to end the collegium system of judges appointment, the SC must brace itself for a Kesavananda-like confrontation.With data showing nearly 25 per cent of sitting MPs and 31 per cent of sitting MLAs having criminal cases against them, Parliament’s silence on this aspect is deafening, if not incriminating. This brazenness of the politician, clearly evident in the reluctance to reinstate Durga Shakti Nagpal, has seriously undermined the credibility of the political class. A thin, but influential, line of defence comprising RTI activists and senior lawyers are gearing up for a legal fight to protect the CIC and SC rulings. But the political system will reform itself only when the demand for transparency and de-criminalisation comes from a strong grassroots movement.

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