Kerala High Court asks the State whether vigilance inquiry files fall inside the RTI exemption for the VACB's T sections

28 October 2026

A Division Bench of Chief Justice Soumen Sen and Justice Syam Kumar V.M. of the Kerala High Court has issued notice to the State on two public interest petitions against a notification that places the T1 and T2 sections of the Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau outside the Right to Information Act, 2005. The notification was published in the Kerala Gazette on 22 October 2026.

The Court did not stay the notification. It asked the State to file an affidavit setting out the categories of information held by T1 and T2, and to clarify whether information about vigilance inquiries against government officials falls within them. The petitions are WP(PIL) 215/2026 by Adv. P.K. Muralikrishnan, a former legal adviser to the Bureau, and WP(PIL) 216/2026 by Joy Kaitharath. They are listed for hearing on 18 November.

Section 24(4) of the Right to Information Act allows a State Government to exempt intelligence and security organisations it specifies by notification, except in matters of corruption and human rights violations. The petitioners rely on a Supreme Court ruling that a special police establishment investigating corruption is not an intelligence or security organisation.