Chennai: “Should access to information on law and order be prohibited under the Right to Information Act? The government’s failures cannot be hidden through an RTI ban,” said PMK leader Anbumani Ramadoss and AMMK general secretary TTV Dhinakaran in condemnation.
In a statement issued by Anbumani on this, “The Tamil Nadu government has announced that the Governor of Tamil Nadu has issued an order classifying the public (law and order) department as an intelligence and security organization and, by using the authority granted under Section 24(4) of the Right to Information Act, that henceforth data related to law and order will not be provided under the Right to Information Act.
Since law and order is very important for the peace and security of a state, it is condemnable that the Tamil Nadu government has taken away from the people their fundamental right to obtain information about it.
According to the Government Order issued by the Tamil Nadu government, matters considered part of law and order—such as caste and religious clashes, arrests made under preventive detention laws, recommendations of the Commission of Inquiry on law and order, deaths of prisoners, and police investigation reports—will henceforth not be provided under the Right to Information Act.
Answers given to questions related to law and order in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, as well as data on protests by students, farmers, and political party members, have also been prohibited from being obtained. This is highly absurd.
It is not known who advised the Tamil Nadu government to issue such an order. If this government order comes into effect, the truths about the excesses carried out by the police in the name of law and order protection will be concealed.
The inquiry commission on the Thoothukudi shooting, information about the Sathankulam police station death, and information about similar excesses that may occur in the future will all be suppressed and hidden from view. From this itself, one can understand whom such a government order has been issued to protect.
It is the duty of the central and state governments to inform the public about all murders, robberies, sexual assaults, muggings, and other crimes occurring in a country or state. It was precisely to fulfill that duty that the National Crime Records Bureau was established, and reports have been published through it every year.
At the state level as well, the State Crime Records Bureau had been publishing such information. The Pattali Makkal Katchi also insisted in the recently concluded Assembly session that this practice, which was stopped in 2013-14, should be resumed. Instead of doing that, it is unacceptable that the government has imposed restrictions even on obtaining data under the Right to Information Act.
“The purpose of this government order is to cover up the government’s failures regarding law and order. This is wrong. These figures are the very tool for measuring how law and order is maintained in a state. Instead of imposing a ban on releasing the data, this data should be used to improve law and order. The Tamil Nadu government should immediately withdraw this government order,” he said.
In this regard, in a statement issued by AMMK General Secretary TTV. Dhinakaran, “The Tamil Nadu government’s issuance of a gazette notification exempting from the Right to Information Act the details pertaining to social and caste conflicts coming under the law and order wing of the public department, the recommendations of law and order-related inquiry committees, custodial deaths, inquiries related to police shootings, cases filed for political reasons, and student and farmers’ protests is highly condemnable.
The police, which has taken no action to control the murders, robberies, sexual violence against women, and the rampant circulation of narcotic substances that occur daily in Tamil Nadu, instead tries to conceal everything by classifying all information in the public department’s law and order wing as related to Intelligence, thereby exposing its own administrative confusion.
Chief Minister Vijay must explain what kind of transparency it is to proclaim from one stage after another that transparent governance will be provided, while keeping matters related to the public’s fundamental rights and the government’s use of power hidden from public view.
The criticism has arisen among the public that the TVK government, which is trying to hide government files from public view even before six months have been completed since coming to power, would not be surprising even if it completely severed the connection between the government and the people before its term ends.
Therefore, realizing that a government administration that cannot answer the people’s questions can never be a transparent administration, I urge Chief Minister Vijay to immediately cancel the gazette notification exempting the public sector’s law and order division from the Right to Information Act,” he said.
