Bring CID & BIEO under 'Right to Information' (RTI) Act-2005 Act

STAFF REPORTER

GUWAHATI: The Assam Information Commission has once again recommended to the Assam government for deletion of CID (Criminal Investigation Department) and the BIEO (Bureau of investigation of Economic Offences) from the list of exempted organizations. If the State government agrees to do so, both these organizations will come under the purview of the 'Right to Information' (RTI) Act-2005 Act.

As per the existing rules, if anyone files any application related to CID and BIEO under the RTI Act, none of the two organizations is liable to reply as both are presently exempted from doing so under the RTI Act.

Mentionably, the Commission had made this recommendation earlier also; but the State government did not respond to its request.

The Commission's fresh recommendation in its recent annual report 2018-19 has been reproduced below:

"Under section 24(4) of the Act, the Government of Assam issued a notification No. PLA.384/2005/54 dated 8th March, 2006 listing nine 'intelligence and security' organizations exempting them from the purview of the RTI Act-2005. This list of nine organizations includes CID and BIEO. Exemption of BIEO seems to run counter to the objectives of containment of corruption and transparency in dealing with corruption.

"In any case, as their very names suggest, these two organizations are investigating agencies and not intelligence and Security organizations.

"Section 8 (1) (h) of the Act gives them reasonable and adequate exemptions to maintain confidentiality of the investigation process. Therefore, exempting these two investigating agencies u/s 24 (4) of the Act appears to be not consonant with section 24 (4) of the Act, which is meant only for intelligence and security organizations."

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