Ever since Joseph Vijay's government was formed in Tamil Nadu, it has been in the news. Sometimes there is a matter of MLAs changing sides or a vigorous debate in the Assembly. Now Vijay's government has gone on the backfoot regarding a change in the Right to Information (RTI) Act. Due to pressure, the Vijay government has withdrawn this change. The difficulty for Vijay in this matter had increased when his Tamilaga Vetri Kazhagam (TVK) ally Congress had also protested. Seeing the matter becoming serious, the TVK government of Tamil Nadu has taken back its steps.
This matter is related to the exclusion of the state law department from the purview of the RTI Act, 2005. All opposition parties in the state, including Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), as well as the ruling Congress and Viduthalai Chirutaigal Katchi (VCK) also raised questions. This order was issued by the State Human Resource Management Department on September 21 but it was withdrawn on Sunday i.e. October 27.
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What is the whole matter?
In fact, in an earlier order of the Tamil Nadu government, an attempt was made to exclude the state law department from RTI by placing it in the 'Integrity and Security Organization' category under Section 24 (4) of the Transparency Act. This would mean that if any person asked questions through RTI, he would not be able to get the information.
This was the reason why there was opposition to it from the beginning. Actually, only the law department has information about custodial death and other law related matters. This department also provides many other information related to crime and justice. In such a situation, if this department was out of the scope of RTI, then its information could have been hidden. This is the reason why many opposition parties and other organizations were raising questions against it. At the same time, many ministers of the TVK government were defending this decision but in the end the government thought it right to withdraw it.
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The allies themselves surrounded TVK
The troubles of TVK, which was running the Tamil Nadu government with the support of Congress and other allies, increased when these parties themselves came against this decision. Congress MP Karti Chidambaram criticized this decision and said that efforts should be made to expand the scope of RTI, not to reduce it. Later, when the government withdrew this decision, Karti Chidambaram also welcomed this decision.
Similarly, VCK had also called this decision surprising. The opposition DMK had described this decision as hiding its failure. However, now Vijay's government has taken it out of this problem and has also calmed the anger of its allies.