Right to Information Act, 2005: Procedure, Exemptions, Information Commissions and Recent Amendments (UPSC Notes)

Background: from a village campaign to a national law

The right to information grew from the ground up. In the early 1990s the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan in rural Rajasthan held public hearings, called jan sunwais, where muster rolls and bills of local works were read aloud. Villagers found payments to people who had died and for works never built. The slogan was simple: our money, our accounts. Courts had already linked the right to know with freedom of speech in cases such as State of UP v Raj Narain (1975) and S.P. Gupta (1981). Several States passed their own laws, starting with Tamil Nadu and Goa in 1997. A central Freedom of Information Act, 2002 was passed but never notified. The Right to Information Act, 2005 replaced it, and came fully into force on 12 October 2005.

Where it came from

The demand began in villages, not in Delhi. In the early 1990s the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan in central Rajasthan held jan sunwais where muster rolls of public works were read aloud, and villagers found names of dead people drawing wages. “Hamara paisa, hamara hisaab” became the slogan. Tamil Nadu and Goa passed State RTI laws in 1997; the weak Freedom of Information Act, 2002 never came into force; the 2005 Act replaced it.

How it works

• Apply to the Public Information Officer with a fee of ₹10 (free for BPL applicants); no reason needed.
• Reply within 30 days; 48 hours for life and liberty; 35 days through an Assistant PIO.
• First appeal to a senior officer, second appeal to the Information Commission.
• Penalty on the PIO up to ₹25,000 for unjustified delay or denial.
• Section 4: proactive disclosure of functions, budgets, officers and decisions.

Exemptions and limits

Section 8 protects information affecting sovereignty and security, foreign relations, cabinet papers until the decision is taken, trade secrets, fiduciary information and personal information. Section 24 excludes intelligence and security bodies listed in the Second Schedule, except for allegations of corruption and human rights violations. A public interest override existed for most exemptions.

Recent changes

• RTI (Amendment) Act, 2019: the Centre now fixes the tenure, salary and conditions of Information Commissioners by rules (term three years under the 2019 rules), replacing the fixed five-year term and Election Commission-level pay.
• Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (Section 44(3)) rewrote Section 8(1)(j): all personal information is exempt, and the public interest test for it was removed. Journalists and transparency groups have challenged this.

Key timelines under the Act

Impact and problems

Several million applications are filed every year. RTI exposed the Adarsh Housing scam and countless ration and pension frauds. Problems: over 20 RTI users have been killed in some years, Commissions sit with vacancies and backlogs (the Supreme Court pulled up governments in Anjali Bhardwaj, 2019), and political parties have resisted the CIC’s 2013 ruling that six national parties are public authorities.

Penalties and the record of Commissions

Section 20 lets the Information Commission impose a penalty of Rs 250 a day on a PIO who refuses an application, delays without reason, or gives false information, up to a maximum of Rs 25,000. It can also recommend disciplinary action. In practice, Commissions impose penalties in only a small share of cases where violations are found, which weakens the deterrent. Section 4 requires every public authority to publish a large set of information on its own, such as its functions, budgets, decision-making norms and the names of officers. Better proactive disclosure would reduce the flood of applications. Long pendency of second appeals and vacancies in Information Commissions are common complaints, and the Supreme Court in Anjali Bhardwaj v Union of India (2019) directed timely and transparent appointments.

Landmark RTI judgments

RTI and personal data

Section 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act originally exempted personal information that had no relation to public activity or interest, or that would cause an unwarranted invasion of privacy, unless a larger public interest justified disclosure. It also said that information which cannot be denied to Parliament or a State Legislature cannot be denied to any person. The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, through Section 44(3), amended Section 8(1)(j) to exempt information relating to personal information without the public-interest test. Transparency campaigners argue this lets officials refuse details such as names in muster rolls or beneficiary lists that were central to social audits. The government’s position is that privacy, recognised as a Fundamental Right in Puttaswamy (2017), needs protection. For Mains, present this as a tension between two rights, both grounded in Article 21 and Article 19(1)(a), and suggest ways to keep public functions open while protecting genuinely private data.

Another theme is the safety of RTI users. Several activists have been attacked or killed after exposing wrongdoing, which makes the Whistle Blowers Protection Act, 2014 and its effective use an important part of the transparency framework.

Who is a public authority

Section 2(h) defines a public authority as any body set up by the Constitution, by a law of Parliament or a State Legislature, or by a government notification, and also any body owned, controlled or substantially financed by government, including NGOs that receive substantial funds. Courts have read substantial finance as funding without which the body would struggle to exist, not a small grant. In 2013 the Central Information Commission declared six national political parties to be public authorities, citing concessional land, free airtime and tax exemptions, but the parties did not comply, and petitions seeking enforcement of that order were later filed in the Supreme Court.

Rti Act: UPSC angle

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