Section 24 of the RTI Act

Section 24 of the RTI Act lets the government take some organisations completely outside the reach of the RTI Act, but only if they are genuinely intelligence or security bodies, and even then, not entirely.

Why does it exist?

Some government bodies handle work like intelligence-gathering, counter-terrorism, or internal security, where making every file public could put officers, informants or ongoing operations at risk. Section 24 lets Parliament and state legislatures protect this narrow category of sensitive work, while still keeping a check on misuse of power by these very organisations.

Where did it come from?

Section 24 was part of the RTI Act as passed in 2005. It works through a schedule (a list) rather than a general definition, so that only organisations Parliament (for the Centre) or a state government (for the states) specifically names are exempt, not every agency that claims to do "security" work.

How does it work?

At the Centre, sub-section (1) says the Act does not apply to organisations listed in the Act's Second Schedule, which currently names 26 central bodies, including the Intelligence Bureau, the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW), the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the National Investigation Agency (NIA), and central paramilitary forces such as the CRPF and BSF. Sub-section (2) lets the central government add more organisations to this Second Schedule later, by a notification in the Official Gazette.

For the states, sub-section (4) gives state governments a matching power: a state government can notify, by an Official Gazette notification, its own state-level intelligence and security organisations as exempt from the RTI Act. Any such state notification must, under sub-section (5), be laid before the State Legislature, so elected representatives can examine it.

The key limits everyone forgets

Even a fully exempted organisation is not beyond all accountability. Two provisos (conditions) apply to every exemption under Section 24, at the Centre and in the states alike:

1. Information relating to allegations of corruption can never be withheld under Section 24.
2. Information relating to allegations of human rights violations can also not be withheld, but it can only be given after the approval of the Information Commission (the CIC at the Centre, or the SIC in a state), and it must then be given within 45 days of the request.

So Section 24 is not a total blackout. It removes routine RTI access to an organisation's regular files, but corruption and human rights complaints still have a route to disclosure, through the Information Commission.

India's position and Indian examples

Some states, including Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, and Telangana, have used sub-section (4) to exempt state police intelligence wings, special branches, or similar units. Courts have repeatedly said that this power must be used narrowly. In R.K. Jain v. Union of India (2013), the Supreme Court held that even an exempted organisation like the CBI must still disclose information about corruption and human rights violations, confirming that the exemption is conditional, not absolute.

Commonly confused concepts

Do not confuse Section 24 (a schedule-based, whole-organisation exemption for intelligence and security bodies) with Section 8 (a list of specific grounds, like national security or Cabinet papers, that any public authority can use to refuse a particular piece of information on a case-by-case basis). An organisation not named in the Second Schedule cannot use Section 24 at all, even if it does some security-related work; it can only claim the narrower Section 8 exemptions.

Issues, criticism and the way forward

Transparency advocates argue that state governments sometimes stretch Section 24 to cover general law-and-order or civil police departments that do everyday policing, not intelligence work, which can hide inquiry reports on custodial deaths, police firing, or the handling of protests from public view. Because the corruption and human-rights carve-outs depend on citizens knowing to ask and Information Commissions acting quickly, critics say the protection is often theoretical in practice.

The suggested way forward is for such notifications to name only genuine intelligence units narrowly, to be reviewed by the legislature as the law requires, and to be withdrawn quickly, as Tamil Nadu did in this case, when they are found to be overbroad.