Defence Ministry wants forces out of RTI ambit

With the Ministry of Personnel failing to respond positively to repeated requests by South Block for the three armed forces to be exempted f...

With the Ministry of Personnel failing to respond positively to repeated requests by South Block for the three armed forces to be exempted from the Right to Information (RTI) Act, the Ministry of Defence has revived the issue. It reasons that since all paramilitary forces under the Home Ministry, including the BSF and CRPF, have been kept out of the act’s purview, it is only logical for the armed forces too to be precluded from the RTI.

The MoD made its first representation to the MoPP in June this year, shortly after the RTI Act became operational. In response, Under Secretary Rakesh Malhotra informed it on August 23 that Section 8 of the Act’s Schedule I was ‘‘adequate to protect the interests of the Department of Defence’’, though the proposal to include the three armed forces under Schedule 2 of the Act—the exemption clause—was still under consideration.

The MoD has now said that the three armed forces should enjoy the same exemptions under the Act as provided to security forces under the Home Ministry.

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While exempting them, the clause enshrined in Schedule 2 of the Act, however, makes it compulsory for all agencies listed there to mandatorily provide information on matters concerning corruption and human rights violations.

A scrutiny of Section 8 of Schedule I, which currently covers the three armed services, however, suggests they have enough leeway to deny information to requests under the RTI Act. The section empowers the services to ignore requests for data that is deemed a threat to national security. Sources say the rationale for moving to Schedule 2 is that it would be a huge saving on clerical costs, paperwork and infrastructure expenses for information that would anyway was not bound to be made available. The MoD is also of the opinion that all requests under the Act need to be for information of clear public-interest value.

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