"The power under Section 24 of the RTI Act, 2005 was meant to be a narrow security carve-out, not a tool of administrative secrecy." Discuss with recent examples.

Section 24 of the RTI Act, 2005 keeps intelligence and security organisations outside the Act. Central bodies are listed in the Second Schedule, and States can add their own bodies by notification under Section 24(4) [1]. It was designed as a narrow shield for secret services, but governments now increasingly stretch it to cover ordinary administration.

Design: a narrow carve-out

• Proviso: even exempted bodies must disclose information on allegations of corruption and human-rights violations [1].
• Legislative check: under Section 24(5), every State notification must be laid before the State Legislature [1].
• Section 8 already protects sensitive information item by item, so exempting a whole organisation was meant to be the exception [1].

Drift towards administrative secrecy: recent examples

• Tamil Nadu (September 2026): a Government Order declared the entire Public (Law and Order) Department an "intelligence and security organisation". This covered records on communal clashes and custodial deaths. Officials refused RTI requests before the order was even public. After protests, the order was withdrawn within days, with no reasons given.
• Centre: the Second Schedule lists investigating agencies such as the CBI and NIA, not only intelligence bodies [1]. States can now point to this precedent.
• Weaker referee: the RTI (Amendment) Act, 2019 lets the Centre set commissioners' tenure and pay [2]. This weakens the commissions that hear appeals against such exemptions.

The State's security rationale

• Releasing inquiry reports on communal violence too early can put witnesses at risk and inflame tensions.
• Case-by-case review under Section 8 burdens Public Information Officers, and a wrong call can leak sensitive material.
• However, the proviso keeps human-rights information open. A blanket exemption therefore hides routine files while leaving open the very material it was meant to protect.

Way forward

• A notification should take effect only after publication, with reasons recorded.
• The Act should define "intelligence and security organisation" tightly, and the Second Schedule should be reviewed periodically.
• Fixed tenure for Information Commissioners should be restored [2].
• Specific sensitive records should be withheld under Section 8(1)(a), (g) and (h) instead [1].

Section 24 is meant to balance security with the right to know under Article 19(1)(a). The Tamil Nadu reversal shows that citizens are watching, but safeguards should not depend on protests. Narrow, published and reasoned exemptions would fulfil the 2nd ARC's vision of RTI as the "Master Key to Good Governance" [3].