Tamil Nadu Exempts, Then Withdraws, RTI Exemption for Its Law and Order Department
The Tamil Nadu government issued Government Order (G.O.) Ms. No. 57, dated 21 September 2026, from its Human Resources Management (R) Department.
The order used sub-section (4) of Section 24 of the Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005, to declare the state's Public (Law and Order) Department an "intelligence and security organisation," taking it outside the RTI Act's reach.
The exemption would have kept out of public reach information on communal and caste clashes, inquiry reports on police firing, custodial deaths, the handling of student and farmer protests, and detentions under the National Security Act.
The order drew criticism from multiple quarters, including allies of the state government, within days of being issued.
The state government revoked the exemption on 27 September 2026, restoring the Public (Law and Order) Department's normal RTI accountability.
Right to Information Act, 2005
The Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005 gives every citizen of India the right to ask for information from a public authority and get an answer within a fixed time. Before this law, government files and records were mostly closed to the public. The RTI Act opened them up, so that ordinary people can check how the government works, how public money is spent, and why a decision was taken.
Tamil Nadu's brief exemption order would have used the RTI Act's own Section 24 machinery to place its Law and Order Department outside this entire framework, an example of how far a government can go using the exemption clause before public and political pressure forced a reversal.
Section 24 of the RTI Act: Exemption of Intelligence and Security Organisations
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.
Tamil Nadu's Human Resources Management (R) Department issued G.O. Ms. No. 57 on 21 September 2026, using exactly this Section 24(4) power to declare its Public (Law and Order) Department an exempt "intelligence and security organisation." Because the department handles general law-and-order matters, not narrow intelligence work, the move drew swift criticism, and the state withdrew the order on 27 September 2026, six days later.
- G.O. Ms. No. 57, Human Resources Management (R) Department, Tamil Nadu, dated 21 September 2026.
- Legal basis used: Section 24(4) of the RTI Act, 2005.
- Exemption revoked: 27 September 2026, six days after issue.
- Information the order would have shielded: communal/caste clash records, police firing inquiry reports, custodial death details, handling of student and farmer agitations, National Security Act detention matters.
- RTI Act's Second Schedule (Centre): 26 exempt intelligence/security organisations.
- Mandatory exceptions to any Section 24 exemption: corruption allegations (always open) and human rights violation allegations (open with Information Commission approval, within 45 days).