Sudheeran demands withdrawal of notification to exclude VACB from RTI

Thiruvananthapuram: KPCC president V. M. Sudheeran today demanded withdrawal of government notification excluding the top secret section of the Vigilance and Anti-corruption Bureau dealing with inquiries against present and former ministers, all India service officers and members of Assembly and Parliament from the purview of RTI Act.

The KPCC president announced through twitter that he had urged Chief Minister Oommen Chandy to withdraw the order.

The government had issued the notification on January 27 following which the Bureau issued an internal order (dated Feb. 2, 2016) to all its offices directing that information need not be given to RTI applicants on cases with T (top secret) reference.

Meanwhile, the State Information Commission has decided to call for the relevant file relating to the notification on a complaint from Opposition Leader V. S. Achuthanandan questioning the notification.

Chief Information Commissioner Siby Mathews said that notice would be issued to the government in this regard next week.

Meanwhile, Chief Minister Oommen Chandy maintained that the reports that vigilance enquiries against Chief Ministers and Ministers had been excluded from purview of right to information was baseless. The government had only taken steps to ensure the security of the complaints as they faced threats.

The Vigilance and Anti-corruption Bureau had been repeatedly demanding exclusion of the T Branch since 2009. It was excluded after obtaining the opinions of the Law Department and Advocate General and studying the example of Tamil Nadu which had excluded Vigilance police from purview of right to information.

The Chief Minister said that the T branch dealt with various kinds of important inquires conducted by the Vigilance Bureau. Several of these were investigations conducted prior to registering of case. Disclosure of details about the petitioner would affect the security of the petitioner. Besides, the investigation itself had suffered in the past because of “leakage of information” under Right to Information Act.

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Copies of the Notification and redistribution of work done by VACB prior to issue of the notification is appended below: The Office order shows the items excluded from RTI.