The Union personnel ministry has refused to disclose file notes related to deliberations to grant CERT-IN, the national nodal agency for responding to computer security incidents, exemption from the Right to Information Act, according to a response under the transparency law.

According to a gazette notification on November 23, CERT has been included in the second schedule of the RTI Act which will exempt it from the provisions of the Act except when the information it holds and sought by an applicant pertains to allegations of corruption or human rights violations. Venkatesh Nayak, director of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, said he approached the Department of Personnel and Training, seeking file notings related to the decision to include the organisation in the list of exempted organisations in the RTI Act. The information was denied to him, citing section 24 of the Act, he added.

“Section 24 of the RTI Act provides that nothing contained in this Act shall apply to the intelligence and security organizations specified in the second schedule of the RTI Act. The proposal of exemption of Indian Computer Emergency Response Team from the ambit of RTI Act has been dealt in File No.1/3/2021-IR II which relates to amendment in second schedule to the RTI Act, 2005,” the response from the DoPT said. It said the information provided by the organisations concerned, including the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team, for their inclusion in the second schedule is of secret nature and exempted under section 8(1)(a) of the RTI Act. The section relates to information, disclosure of which would prejudicially affect the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security, strategic, scientific or economic interests of the state, relation with foreign state or lead to incitement of an offence.

“Further, information is also exempted under section 8(1)(i) of the RTI Act being record of deliberations of Secretaries and other officers and part of the Note for Committee of Secretaries which itself is Secret,” the response read.

Nayak called the refusal “simply intriguing” because his previous applications seeking records related to the RTI exemption granted to other security and intelligence organisations were furnished. “When the NDA government decided to include the Strategic Forces Command (SFC) under the excluded list, the CPIO gave me all the information, including file noting and correspondence and the note put up to the Committee of Secretaries,” he said.