Stage set for RTI exemption for forces, cybersecurity and tax data agencies

High-level government discussions have favoured granting near full exemption to the Armed forces from the Right to Information Act, 2005, on the grounds of national security but with assurances on redressal of employee and pensioner grievances.
An in-principle agreement has been arrived at a recent meeting to exempt Indian Computer Emergency Response Team CERT-in -- the nodal national agency that deals with cybersecurity threats -- as well as GST and tax evasion analytics wing Directorate General of Analytics and Risk Management (DGARM) on the grounds of data sensitivity, ET has gathered.

While the final decision has not been made public, the Department of Personnel & Training is learnt to be finalising the modalities of the exemption regime for which a notification is likely to be issued soon. DOPT officials did not respond to ET's queries on the same.

Following discussions of a committee of secretaries with the Cabinet Secretary, it is learnt that all the three armed forces, CERT-in and DGARM are likely to be included in the second schedule of the RTI Act, 2005.

The second schedule lists out 26 Intelligence and security organisation such as the Intelligence Bureau, RAW, CBI, paramilitary forces, Narcotics Control Bureau, National Security Council Secretariat and NTRO that have been kept out of the RTI Act's purview for security reasons.

The Central government has the authority to amend the 2nd schedule from time to time, adding, removing or substituting organisations present in the schedule. A similar provision is provided to the state legislature under section 24 (4) of the Act. Any notification for exempting organisations has to be placed before the Parliament/state assembly for scrutiny.

The strongest pitch had been made by the armed forces, as first reported by ET on July 9, 2021, when the Department of Military Affairs, then headed by Chief of Defence Staff Bipin Rawat, had moved a proposal seeking inclusion in the second schedule of the RTI Act, 2005. The 2nd Administrative Reforms Commission under Congress leader Veerappa Moily had made a case for the same in its report in 2006.

RTI activists were strongly opposed to the move then and argued that most of the work of the armed forces was already exempt. Hence there was no good reason to take whole organisations out of the purview of the RTI, especially since the armed forces employ a huge number of people. A renewed case was made on this at a Committee of Secretaries meeting earlier this year.

A more conclusive meeting was chaired by Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba on April 28 just as Army Chief MS Naravane demitted office. The armed forces are learnt to have cited instances where RTI applications were filed simultaneously across various military bases/ agencies and were assessed as attempts at Intelligence gathering.

The DOPT had raised objections at the meeting to a blanket exemption from the RTI Act, on the grounds that the armed forces employ a huge number of personnel and nearly 40,000 grievances are addressed through RTI/CPGRAMS annually. Any blanket exemption would impact them adversely.

The Defence Ministry supported the proposal of the armed forces at the April 28 meeting and assured that the grievances of pensioners and personnel will be addressed through appropriate forums.