The Supreme Court on Monday sought responses from the Centre, Election Commission and the Law Commission on a plea to regulate the conduct of political parties and ensure that they strictly comply with the memorandum of rules they had agreed upon at the time of their registration.

“I think it has some very meaningful prayers, you should look into it,” Justice Surya Kant, heading the bench, told additional solicitor-general K.M. Natraj while seeking the response of the authorities on the issue.

The bench, which also had Justice Joymalya Bagchi, was dealing with an application filed by advocate Ashwini Upadhyaya seeking such directions on the ground that political parties in a democracy have vital responsibilities and duties to discharge towards the electorate as they enjoy several government benefits.

According to the PIL, there was an urgent need for the Election Commission to frame rules for registration and regulation of political parties to promote secularism, transparency, democracy and political justice. The petitioner also sought direction to the Centre to take steps to reduce the “corruption, casteism, linguism, regionalism, communalism and criminalisation in politics”.

It submitted that political parties hold constitutional status and wield constitutional powers in as much as they have the power to: (a) disqualify legislators from Parliament and Assemblies, (b) bind legislators in their speeches and voting inside the House, (c) decide what laws are made, (d) decide whether government remains in power and (e) decide public policies that affect lives of millions of people.

“The political parties have been given statutory status under Section 9A of the RPA, and they are required to bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution as by law established. Political parties give tickets to candidates, and people vote on party symbols and, thus, the parties are important instrumentalities of the democratic governance and function like a public authority.

“Political parties are substantially financed by the state in multiple ways and are exempted from income tax. They have been claiming tax exemption under the Income Tax Act. State has been indirectly financing various political parties by way of free airtime on All India Radio. In addition, the state spends huge amounts on political parties to provide free air time on Doordarshan.

“The central and state governments have allotted various buildings and other types of accommodations to various parties either free of cost or at concessional rates. This also amounts to indirect financing of parties. But there is no law to regulate their functioning,” the petition said.