Chennai: The Tamil Nadu government order exempting the state government’s Public Law and Order Department from the Right to Information Act has been withdrawn.
In this regard, Tamil Nadu Law Minister Nirmal Kumar said in an X post, “Under Section 24, Sub-section (4) of the Right to Information Act, 2005, the government order issued by the Human Resources Management Department exempting the Tamil Nadu government’s Public Law and Order Department has been withdrawn.”
Earlier, “The Tamil Nadu government issued a government order stating that many important details related to law and order would not be provided under the Right to Information Act. Accordingly, the government has exempted the Public Law and Order Department from the scope of the Right to Information Act. Therefore, under the Right to Information Act, 2005, questions asked about the Tamil Nadu government’s intelligence and security apparatus, the ‘Public (Law and Order) Department,’ will no longer be answered,” the government order said.
Not only opposition parties such as the PMK, AMMK, and DMK, but also parties supporting TVK, including the VCK and the Left parties, opposed this government order issued by the Tamil Nadu government.
In a statement issued on this, CPM State Secretary P. Shanmugam said, “The Tamil Nadu government has issued a Government Order stating that information related to law and order need not be provided under the Right to Information Act. This action of the Tamil Nadu government is strongly condemnable.
Exempting Tamil Nadu’s Public (Law and Order) Department from this law will prevent investigation reports related to custodial deaths from coming to public attention; this poses a grave threat to human rights. If information including students’ and farmers’ protests is also covered, it amounts to an attempt to crush the rights to protest guaranteed by the Constitution.
Applying it to preventive measures under the National Security Act would only sharpen a law that is already being used as an authoritarian weapon. Exempting information about religious and caste conflicts could be exploited by reactionary forces. Anything can be brought under the definition of law and order, and information can be denied. This is authoritarian and contrary to the rule of law.
In recent times, police excesses in student and youth protests have been exposed very severely. The police entered college and school campuses and engaged in lawlessness. Measures to strengthen the state as a “surveillance state” were also intensified. This ordinance too is an extension of the suppression of the people’s right to protest.
The very basis of the Right to Information Act is to ensure transparency in government administration. Such an ordinance, which dulls the edge of the Right to Information Act that can serve as a weapon in the hands of ordinary people, must be withdrawn immediately,” he said.
Amid opposition from various political parties, the Tamil Nadu government has withdrawn the government order it had issued exempting the Tamil Nadu government’s Public Law and Order Department from the Right to Information Act.
