Chief Information Commissioner R K Mathur has directed to keep 'in abeyance' the matter pertaining to political parties not adhering to the Right to Information Act, thus putting the controversial issue in cold storage.

The note, in this regard, was issued after Bimal Julka, one of the members of the bench hearing the case, recused himself on December 23, 2016.

'Till the bench is reconstituted or a decision taken on IC (BJ) note, the proceedings may temporarily remain in abeyance,' Mathur had stated on December 29, 2016.

Nearly three months later, there is no word on replacement of Julka in the bench and the matter hangs in a limbo.

The file notings have now been disclosed by the Central Information Commission under the RTI Act to activist R K Jain, who had filed a complaint against political parties.

Mathur's direction to keep the hearing in abeyance comes in spite of a 2014 order of the Delhi high court to the Commission to decide within six months the complaint filed by Jain.

The activist has alleged that the parties were not replying to RTI applications and have not put in place any infrastructure mandated under the RTI Act.

Six national parties -- the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Congress, the Nationalist Congress Party, the Communist Party of India-Marxist, the Communist Party of India and the Bahujan Samaj Party were brought under the ambit of the RTI Act by a Full Bench of the Commission on June 3, 2013.

This order was neither challenged in a high court nor changed but the political parties have refused to entertain the RTI applications directed at them. -- PTI