The Tamil Nadu government has revoked its September 21 order exempting the Public (Law and Order) Department from the Right to Information (RTI) Act after opposition parties and political leaders condemned the move. The original notification, issued under Section 24(4), had classified the department as an Intelligence and Security Organisation, a step that would have shielded police-related records from routine citizen queries. A LiveMint report states that the latest government order declares the exemption "stands revoked."
The withdrawal came days after the decision faced criticism. The department handles inquiry reports into police firing, custodial deaths, police torture, deaths of remand prisoners, security-related detention cases, communal and caste clashes, withdrawal of politically sensitive cases, and sanction for prosecution in matters involving defamatory articles and speeches, according to an NDTV report. The earlier exemption would have taken all of that out of the public domain.
In its latest order, the government said:
"Government Order Ms.No 57 of Human Resources Management (R) department dated 21st September,2026, relating to exemption of the Public (Law and Order) Department under sub section (4) of section 24 of the RTI Act,2005, stands revoked."
CPM MP Venkatesan demanded immediate withdrawal.
"This move is an open effort to change Tamil Nadu as police state. The Government should immediately withdraw the order,"he said. Congress MP Karti Chidambaram argued that the RTI framework was created to improve transparency and accountability in governance. He said the TVK government's move did not set a good precedent and reminded the state that RTI was a landmark decision brought in by the Congress-led UPA government to strengthen democratic accountability.
India Today reported that the revocation followed sustained criticism of the notification. The episode shows how quickly a state-level transparency rollback can be reversed when opposition parties and the press treat it as a test of democratic accountability.
What Section 24(4) was never meant to do
Section 24(4) of the RTI Act allows a state government to exempt any organisation notified as an intelligence or security organisation from the law's disclosure obligations. The provision is written as an exception, not a general authority. Intelligence and security organisations operate covertly; their records cannot be opened without compromising their function. The Public (Law and Order) Department supervises police administration, prison oversight, prosecution sanctions, and public order. Applying the intelligence exemption to it stretched statutory language beyond its purpose.
The distinction matters because the records in question are not state secrets. They are the paper trail of how the state uses force against its own citizens. Inquiry reports into police firing, custodial deaths, and torture allegations answer questions that communities ask after every violent encounter with the police. The RTI Act gives an ordinary citizen a legal route to those answers. The September 21 order closed that route without any assembly debate.
A signal other states will notice
Tamil Nadu's climbdown extends beyond Chennai. State governments have used Section 24(4) quietly in the past, sometimes to exempt police or law-and-order wings from the RTI Act. Rarely has a state reversed course within days because of political and civil-society pressure. The speed reflects the nature of the subject: once the public understood that access to police and prison records was at stake, the exemption became politically untenable. Other states considering similar notifications now have a recent example of how such moves unravel.
The central government could add clarity. The RTI Act sets a national transparency standard, but Section 24(4) leaves exemption decisions to states. A circular from the central department responsible for RTI implementation, clarifying that law-and-order departments cannot be notified as intelligence organisations, would not override state powers. It would make the statute's original distinction explicit. Tamil Nadu's episode may provide the occasion.
There is a broader federal lesson here. The RTI Act's strength depends on state-level enforcement. When a state government tries to carve out a public-facing department, local opposition parties, the press, and civil-society groups are often the first line of accountability. They caught this notification early and forced a reversal before courts had to intervene. That is not a failure of federalism; it is federalism doing what it is supposed to do.
The practical stakes for RTI applicants
The withdrawal has immediate consequences. RTI applicants in Tamil Nadu can again file requests concerning police firing and custodial deaths. Activists and journalists who use the RTI Act to investigate state violence will not have to first prove the department is not an intelligence organisation. The administrative burden shifts back to where the law intended: public authorities must answer rather than argue they are exempt.
There is also a chronological point. The notification was published in the government gazette, a formal act. It was reversed not by the state legislature or a court but by executive order. That is acceptable, but it means the underlying temptation remains. A future government can issue a similar notification again. Only a clear central guideline or a judicial reading of Section 24(4) would make the exemption unavailable for law-and-order departments. Until then, public vigilance remains the main backstop.
The order stands revoked, but the episode leaves a residue. Any future attempt to place police and prison records beyond the RTI Act will have to reckon with how quickly this notification collapsed. For Indian citizens who depend on the RTI Act to ask uncomfortable questions about custodial deaths and police violence, the lesson is simple: the right to know survives, but only when it is defended in public.
