A Bench headed by Chief Justice H L Dattu issued notice to all national political parties including BJP, Congress, BSP, CPI and CPM, and sought their responses on declaring them as public authorities under the law of transparency. The Bench also issued notice to the Centre and the Election Commission asking them to make their stand clear on this subject.

The Court passed the order based on a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by an NGO, Association for Democratic Reforms. The PIL sought the Court's direction to make political parties amenable to the RTI Act.

Advocate Prashant Bhushan, who appeared for the Petitioner, contended that national parties were virtually funded by the state as they were exempted from filing income tax returns. He said that they would have to deposit 35 per cent of the donations received by them, had they not been exempted. He said that this aspect proved that they were being funded by the Government, thus making them liable to come within the purview of the RTI Act.