🔥 RTI Alert: Rule of Law Buried? Cabinet Secretariat's Illegal Transfer Shields Conspiracy to Subvert Central Act

RTI Ref No: CABST/R/E/25/00803 (Cabinet Secretariat, Filed: 23/09/2025) Transferred To: MOLAW/R/T/25/01229 (Department of Legal Affairs, Date: 26/09/2025)

The integrity of India’s Rule of Law and the fabric of its Democracy are under direct threat when the highest executive offices collude to suppress records of their own inaction. The case of the Cabinet Secretariat (CABSEC) deliberately violating the RTI Act is not merely a procedural lapse; it is an act of administrative sabotage designed to bury evidence of a deeper, systemic failure.

The core issue involves the CABSEC's administrative duty to address the potential conflict between a Jharkhand High Court Notification (which restricts the authority of Notaries) and the Central Statute, the Notaries Act, 1952.

1. The Buried Truth: Executive Collusion in Judicial Overreach

The information sought, which included certified copies of the CABSEC's internal file notings (Question 3), would expose the following shocking failure in the chain of command:

Constitutional/Legal Pillar	The Administrative Act Being Buried	The Ultimate Consequence
Rule of Law (Supremacy of Central Law)	The Executive's Decision to Surrender to Judicial Overreach.	The notings would reveal when and why the CABSEC chose not to defend the Central Statute against a seemingly inconsistent High Court Rule, thereby allowing the Judiciary to effectively amend a Parliamentary Act without legislative authority.
Democratic Accountability (Section 4, RTI Act)	Conscious and Malafide Administrative Inaction.	The absence of notings proves a willful violation of Section 4(1)(d), which requires recording "reasons for administrative decisions." The CABSEC is attempting to destroy the paper trail that proves who decided to look the other way, thus burying the principle of ministerial responsibility.
Anti-Corruption Mandate (PCA 1988/BNS 2023)	Evidence of Willful Misconduct/Concealment.	The file notings are the only records that can confirm a conscious, documented decision to facilitate the subversion of the Notaries Act, thereby making public servants liable under the stringent provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 and the new Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023.

Export to Sheets

The refusal of the CABSEC to disclose its own file notings is effectively an admission that the records contain evidence of an executive decision to facilitate the Judiciary’s alleged sabotage of a Central Act, leading to a detrimental effect on the legal profession and the public.

2. The Illegal Act: Defective Transfer Under Section 6(3)

The CPIO of the Cabinet Secretariat failed to bifurcate the request and illegally transferred its own internal accountability records (Question 3) to the Ministry of Law and Justice (MoLJ).

• The CABSEC is the only custodian of its internal notings.
• The CPIO knew that the MoLJ would be compelled to deny this specific information, thereby using the MoLJ as an administrative shield to escape its own legal responsibility.

This defective transfer is not an error; it is a deliberate procedural gambit to ensure the MoLJ CPIO is forced to issue a denial, successfully obstructing transparency at the first level.

The Way Forward: Holding the Commission Accountable

The citizen will now file a First Appeal against the upcoming denial from the MoLJ. The appeal will be framed as a direct challenge to the CABSEC's malafide action.

We urge the Central Information Commission (CIC) to take suo motu cognizance of this matter. The Commission must recognize that a failure to summon the CABSEC CPIO and establish clear custodianship in this case will send a devastating message: that high-level executive offices can flagrantly violate the RTI Act to shield records of systemic misconduct, thereby burying the Rule of Law and Democracy itself.

The CIC must invoke its powers under Section 18 (Complaint) and Section 20 (Penalty) to penalize the CABSEC CPIO for this blatant act of procedural sabotage.