THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: In a contentious move casting aspersions on transparency, the state government has excluded the T1 and T2 sections of the Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau from the purview of the Right to Information Act.
The general administration department on Thursday published an extraordinary gazette including the two sections to the list of organisations which do not come under the ambit of the RTI Act.
The T1 and T2 sections handle highly-confidential matters. The T1 section handles files such as annual confidential reports of top officials, verification against high-level ministerial, legal and executive officials and allegations levelled against civil servants and elected people’s representatives. T2 section mostly handles intelligence aspects of the Vigilance, including source reports, grassroots verification etc.
The T sections of the Police Headquarters and the Crime Branch are currently excluded from the purview of the RTI Act.
The exemptions have been introduced under Section 24 (4) of the RTI Act, which empowers the state government to exempt state-run intelligence and security apparatus from the purview of RTI Act.
Justifying the move, Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala said confidentiality is required for effective functioning of the department.
He said the T sections of VACB were initially excluded from the ambit of RTI Act, but it was brought under the ambit of the said act by the LDF government.
With the decision, the VACB director will be empowered to decide which all files belong to the T sections. The move has ignited fears that the government is trying to stonewall the public from using the RTI Act to expose corruption.
The BJP leadership has come out against the decision terming it a move to protect the corrupt. BJP national secretary K Surendran termed the government decision anti-democratic and aimed at promoting corruption.
The government which came to power claiming that it would fight against corruption is taking a position in favour of the corrupt officials, said BJP state vice-president Shone George.