Uttarakhand Gives Intelligence Tag To Vigilance Dept.: Now It Is Out Of RTI Purview

• 12 Sep 2020

The Uttarakhand government has issued a notification to declare the state Vigilance Department as an “intelligence organisation”, which in effect will exclude it from the purview of the Right to Information (RTI) Act.

Exemption in RTI Act

• The 2nd schedule of the RTI Act provides a list of 26 organisations that are exempted from providing information on grounds of being intelligence and security organisations.
• Section 24 of the Act states: “The Central government has the authority to amend the 2nd schedule from time to time, thereby adding, removing or substituting organisations present…. The state government has a similar authority and is authorised to exempt an intelligence and security organisation by issuing a notification in the official gazette.”
• It states that both the Centre and state governments are “required to present the said notification before their respective legislatures”.