The Right to Information Act, 2005: a citizen's right to ask, and the limits on it

The Right to Information Act, 2005 gives every citizen the right to request information held by a public authority, meaning a body established by the Constitution or by law, or owned, controlled or substantially financed by government. The Act came fully into force on 12 October 2005. It requires public authorities to appoint Public Information Officers, to maintain and proactively publish categories of information, and to reply to a request expeditiously or within thirty days. Where the information concerns the life or liberty of a person, the reply is to be given within forty-eight hours.

A requester who is refused information, or who receives no reply, may appeal first to an appellate authority within the public authority and then to the Central Information Commission or a State Information Commission. The Commissions are constituted under the Act and may inquire into complaints, direct disclosure, and impose penalties on officers who refuse information without reasonable cause or who destroy records. The Supreme Court has recognised the right to information as flowing from the freedom of speech and expression under Article 19(1)(a), which is why the Act is treated as giving practical effect to a fundamental right.

The Act does not make all information available. Section 8 exempts information whose disclosure would prejudicially affect sovereignty, security, strategic or economic interests, relations with foreign states, cabinet papers, trade secrets, personal information with no public interest, and information received in confidence from a foreign government, among other categories. Section 9 allows rejection where disclosure would infringe copyright. Even exempt information may be disclosed if the public interest in disclosure outweighs the harm, and information that cannot be denied to Parliament or a state legislature cannot be denied to a citizen.

The Act's effectiveness depends on record-keeping and on the capacity of commissions. Delays in appointments, backlogs of appeals and poor maintenance of records can make a thirty-day right slow in practice. Critics also point to the 2019 amendments, which changed the tenure and terms of Information Commissioners from a fixed statutory scheme to terms prescribed by the Central Government, as weakening independence. The Act remains, however, the most widely used transparency law in India, because it turns a citizen's question into a duty with a deadline.