Editorial-29/09/2026
Light on Truth: The Tamil Nadu G.O. and RTI
The Tamil Nadu government’s brief attempt to exempt its Public (Law and Order) Department from the ambit of the Right to Information Act, 2005, was more than an administrative misstep. It was a warning about how easily the promise of transparent government can be weakened by executive action. The order was withdrawn after criticism from political parties, civil-society groups and transparency advocates, but its short life does not make it inconsequential. On the contrary, it raises a larger question: why should a democratic government seek exceptional secrecy in precisely those areas where public accountability is most essential?
The Government Order of September 21 invoked Section 24(4) of the RTI Act to characterise the Public (Law and Order) Department as an “intelligence and security organisation”. Such a classification would have placed the department outside the ordinary obligations of disclosure under the Act. Although the order surfaced publicly only on September 27, officials reportedly began using it to reject requests from the very next day. The promptness with which the exemption was operationalised, contrasted with the absence of public explanation before its issue, gave the episode an unmistakable appearance of secrecy.
The government eventually revoked the order. That reversal deserves acknowledgment: public protest, political opposition and media scrutiny still have the capacity to correct an executive excess. But the withdrawal cannot be the end of the discussion. A government that claims a mandate for change must understand that transparency is not an inconvenience to be managed; it is one of the principal tests of democratic change.
The wrong use of an exception
The RTI Act was enacted in 2005 with a clear democratic purpose. Its preamble recognises that an informed citizenry and transparent governance are indispensable to democracy, help contain corruption, and hold governments accountable. The law gives citizens access to information held by public authorities, while also acknowledging that there are legitimate competing interests such as security, confidentiality and efficient administration. In other words, the Act was never designed as an absolute right to disclosure. It already contains a carefully constructed balance.
Section 24 is among the Act’s strongest protections for sensitive institutions. It excludes specified intelligence and security organisations from the law’s ordinary operation. Under Section 24(4), a State government may notify intelligence or security organisations established by it for this purpose, and the notification must be laid before the State Legislature under Section 24(5). Yet this exceptional power must be interpreted narrowly. It cannot become an easy route for converting an entire department—especially one with broad public-facing responsibilities—into a zone beyond scrutiny.
The Public (Law and Order) Department is not a covert intelligence unit in the ordinary sense. Its work intersects with everyday democratic rights: protest and assembly, preventive action, communal tensions, police deployment, custodial violence, the use of force, security assessments, and inquiries into grave incidents. Some records in these areas may certainly deserve protection. Names of informants, operational plans, intelligence inputs, witness identities, and material whose release could jeopardise an investigation or endanger a person need not be disclosed. But that is very different from insulating an entire department and its records through a blanket exemption.
The distinction matters because secrecy has consequences. If information about police firing, custodial deaths, detention practices, or official action during communal violence becomes inaccessible by default, citizens lose one of the few practical tools available to question state power. Families of victims, journalists, lawyers, researchers and ordinary residents are left dependent on official statements, which may be incomplete, delayed or self-serving. A democracy cannot permit its most coercive arm to become its least answerable one.
RTI already protects sensitive information
The strongest argument against the withdrawn G.O. is legal as well as moral: the State did not need such a sweeping exclusion to protect genuinely sensitive information.
Section 8 of the RTI Act already allows public authorities to refuse disclosure where it would harm national security, affect sovereignty and integrity, prejudice strategic interests, violate a court order, breach legislative privilege, reveal commercial confidence, endanger a person’s life or safety, expose confidential law-enforcement sources, or impede investigation, apprehension or prosecution. Personal information that has no connection with public activity or interest is also protected, unless a larger public interest justifies disclosure.
This framework offers public authorities the capacity to distinguish between legitimate secrecy and routine information. It recognises that an ongoing operation cannot be treated in the same manner as a completed inquiry, and that the identity of an intelligence source is not equivalent to the findings of an investigation into an avoidable death. It also allows partial disclosure: under Section 10, authorities must provide severable portions of a record when the exempt material can reasonably be separated from the disclosable part.
That principle—disclose what can be disclosed, redact what must be protected—is central to the RTI regime. It requires effort, judgment and a presumption in favour of openness. A department-wide exemption does the opposite. It replaces case-by-case scrutiny with institutional immunity.
The law also contains a public-interest safeguard. Even where an exemption applies, Section 8(2) permits disclosure when the public interest in releasing information outweighs the harm to protected interests. This is not an invitation to reckless disclosure. It is a recognition that the public’s right to know becomes especially powerful where allegations concern abuse of power, misuse of public money, violations of rights, or failures of administration.
Tamil Nadu should have relied on this existing structure. If a request sought an operational deployment plan during a tense communal situation, withholding it could be justified. If it sought the identity of a confidential source, protection would be necessary. But if it sought the final findings of a completed inquiry into custodial death, the government would have had to demonstrate why disclosure would cause a concrete and legally recognised harm. That is how accountable administration is meant to work.
Law and order needs scrutiny
“Law and order” is often invoked as though it belongs exclusively to the State. It does not. Public order is maintained in the name of citizens, through public funds and by agencies empowered to use extraordinary force. That is why it must remain subject to democratic oversight.
The police and the administration make decisions that can affect liberty, livelihood, movement and even life itself. A preventive detention order, a curfew decision, a response to a protest, a firing order or an inquiry into a death in custody is not merely an internal file matter. It concerns the relationship between citizen and state. The demand for information in such matters is not hostility to governance; it is part of the public’s effort to ensure that governance remains lawful.
Transparency also improves administration. Officials who know that their actions may be scrutinised are more likely to maintain records carefully, state reasons clearly and follow procedure. Proper disclosure can counter misinformation, establish the factual basis for contentious decisions and build trust during moments of social tension. In contrast, excessive secrecy breeds suspicion. When people are denied access to basic information, they do not assume that the government is protecting a legitimate security interest; they often assume that it is hiding misconduct.
This is particularly relevant in a State with an active political culture, a vigilant media and a long tradition of public debate. Tamil Nadu has repeatedly demonstrated that administrative decisions are not immune from public reasoning. The reaction to the G.O. reflected that democratic instinct. It was a reminder that citizens do not view transparency as a gift from the government. They understand it as a right.
The manner in which the order was issued deepened concern. The G.O. did not emerge after a broad public consultation or a legislative debate on the exact scope of the proposed exemption. Instead, it appeared to have been implemented before it became widely known. The editorial record indicates that RTI authorities began citing the order to deny information as early as September 22, even though public attention followed days later. Such haste is hard to reconcile with the spirit of a law that rests on openness.
Reform the system, not the right
The episode should lead the Tamil Nadu government to strengthen, rather than evade, the RTI system. The real problems facing applicants are not limited to formal exemptions. They include delayed replies, mechanical rejections, vague claims of confidentiality, poor record management and long appeals. A right that exists on paper but cannot be enforced within a reasonable time is a diminished right.
The Tamil Nadu State Information Commission is central to the system because it hears appeals and complaints when departments refuse or delay information. Yet the recent assessment cited in the editorial showed more than 41,000 appeals and complaints pending before the Commission as of June 2025. It also noted that the Commission was functioning with only half of its sanctioned strength of eight Information Commissioners and without a Chief Information Commissioner. These are not minor institutional shortcomings. They determine whether a citizen who has been wrongly denied information can obtain a remedy before the information loses its value.
A report on a police inquiry received years after the incident may be of little help to a victim’s family. Information on a proposed administrative action received after the action is complete does not enable participation. Transparency is meaningful only when it is timely.
The State should therefore take several practical steps. It should fill all vacancies in the Information Commission through a credible and transparent process. It should publish regular data on pendency, disposal rates, penalties imposed for unjustified denial, and compliance by departments. It should ensure that public-information officers receive regular training on the distinction between valid exemptions and routine refusals. It should improve digitisation, record indexing and proactive publication.
Most importantly, departments dealing with law and order should voluntarily publish information that does not compromise operational security. This may include annual statistics on custodial deaths, departmental action on complaints, findings of completed inquiries where legally appropriate, compensation paid, police firing incidents, use of preventive powers, and compliance with court or human-rights directions. Section 4 of the RTI Act requires public authorities to proactively disseminate information so that citizens need not repeatedly file applications. It specifically calls for the disclosure of decision-making procedures, relevant rules and records, and reasons for administrative or quasi-judicial decisions affecting persons.
Proactive disclosure is better for everyone. It reduces the burden on information officers, limits avoidable litigation, gives citizens reliable information, and demonstrates that the government has nothing to fear from scrutiny.
A test of democratic confidence
The revocation of the Tamil Nadu G.O. is a welcome correction, but it must become a lesson in democratic humility. Governments frequently defend secrecy as necessary for efficient administration. Yet efficiency without accountability is merely administrative convenience. A government may act quickly behind closed doors, but it cannot claim public trust unless it is willing to explain itself.
The RTI Act does not demand that every secret be revealed. It demands something more reasonable: that secrecy be justified, specific and proportionate. It asks the state to show why information must be withheld, rather than forcing the citizen to prove why information should be made available. That presumption is the essence of the law.
Tamil Nadu should resist the temptation to treat transparency as a political liability. An administration confident of its intentions and procedures should welcome informed questioning, correct errors when evidence demands it, and distinguish real security needs from bureaucratic discomfort. The public has a legitimate interest in knowing how power is exercised in its name.
The G.O. may have been withdrawn, but its shadow remains. The State now has an opportunity to replace that shadow with a stronger commitment: no blanket secrecy, no casual dilution of statutory rights, and no retreat from independent information institutions. The true measure of a government’s reforming character is not how eloquently it promises change, but how willingly it permits the public to examine the change it claims to deliver.
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