The Right to Information Act, 2005

PREREQUISITES

This chapter assumes you have never read a section of an Act before. Four pieces of vocabulary will appear on almost every page that follows — learn them once, here, and you will not need to stop and look them up again.

Trap: "Substituted" and "amended" are not the same size of change. An amendment can insert a word into an existing clause; a substitution replaces the entire clause with new text, as if the old text had never existed for anyone applying the law today. Section 8(1)(j), as you will see in Part F, was substituted, not merely tweaked — every word of the old test is gone, not adjusted.

What this chapter does not repeat. Chapter 6 already covers the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act 2009, the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act 2016, the Juvenile Justice Act 2015, the POCSO Act 2012, the PoSH Act 2013, and the child-labour and child-marriage statutes — in full, including the school-head duties under each (mandatory reporting under POCSO, the School Management Committee under RTE, the Internal Committee under PoSH). None of that is repeated here. Where this chapter needs one of those facts — for instance, comparing "who is a public authority" or "who is personally liable" across statutes — it names Chapter 6 instead of re-teaching it.

THE ACT'S IDENTITY AND ITS CONSTITUTIONAL ROOTS

A.1 Identity card

The six Chapters, at a glance:

Trap: "15 June 2005" is the assent date; "12 October 2005" is the date most of the Act actually started operating. A small, specific list of sections (the machinery sections above) started on the assent date itself. Papers test both dates, and test them against each other.

A.2 Preamble and objects

The Act's long title describes it as one to provide the "practical regime" of right to information for citizens to secure access to information under the control of public authorities, to promote transparency and accountability in the working of every public authority, and to constitute the Central Information Commission and State Information Commissions.

The Act's four "whereas" recitals form a logical chain that examiners like to test as a sequence:

1. The Constitution of India has established a democratic Republic.
2. Democracy requires an informed citizenry and transparency of information, which are vital to contain corruption and to hold Governments and their instrumentalities accountable to the governed.
3. But revelation of information may conflict with other public interests — the efficient operation of Government, the optimum use of limited fiscal resources, and the preservation of the confidentiality of sensitive information.
4. It is necessary to harmonise these conflicting interests while preserving the paramountcy of the democratic ideal.

The Act was enacted in the Fifty-sixth Year of the Republic of India.

A.3 The constitutional root — Article 19(1)(a)

The Act did not create the right to information. It gave a statutory, enforceable procedure to a right the Supreme Court had already read into Article 19(1)(a) — the fundamental right to freedom of speech and expression — across three landmark cases, decades before 2005:

Trap: "The RTI Act, 2005 created the right to information" is a frequently planted false statement. The Act operationalised and gave a practical regime to a right the courts had already recognised; it did not invent it. Do not confuse this chapter's cases with Chapter 6's education-law cases — Mohini Jain and Unni Krishnan are about the right to education under Article 21, a completely different lineage.

DEFINITIONS THAT CARRY MARKS (SECTION 2)

Section 2 is the single most quoted section in this chapter's practice papers, because every later provision borrows its vocabulary from here. Learn the clause letters, not just the content — "under which clause?" is a direct, recurring question type.

B.1 The full map

B.2 2(e) — Competent authority (five categories)

Trap: "Competent authority" (Section 2(e)) and "appropriate Government" (Section 2(a)) are two entirely different concepts answering two entirely different questions — who makes rules for that body's own internal RTI procedure versus whose rule-making power (Central or State) governs a public authority generally. Do not let an option swap one for the other.

B.3 2(f) — Information (a mark-carrying definition)

"Information" means any material in any form, including — records, documents, memos, e-mails, opinions, advices, press releases, circulars, orders, logbooks, contracts, reports, papers, samples, models, data material held in any electronic form, and information relating to any private body which can be accessed by a public authority under any other law in force.

Trap — private bodies are not directly covered. A private company is not, by itself, a "public authority." But information about it that some public authority could lawfully demand from it under a different law (say, a labour law or a companies law) counts as "information" under Section 2(f), and can be sought from that public authority, not from the private body directly.

"Information" does not include the power to compel a PIO to create new information, give an opinion, or answer a question that calls for interpretation. This limit was settled in CBSE v. Aditya Bandopadhyay (2011) — a PIO must disclose existing "material," including evaluated answer-books, but need not manufacture new material or render an opinion.

B.4 2(h) — Public authority (the definition every school head must know cold)

A "public authority" is any authority, body or institution of self-government established or constituted —

• (a) by or under the Constitution;
• (b) by any other law made by Parliament;
• (c) by any other law made by a State Legislature;
• (d) by notification issued or order made by the appropriate Government;

and includes — (i) a body owned, controlled or substantially financed, and (ii) a non-Government organisation substantially financed, directly or indirectly, by funds provided by the appropriate Government.

A government or government-aided school under a Directorate of Education answers to more than one limb of this definition at once — established/controlled by government notification, and owned or substantially financed by government funds. There is no serious argument that such a school falls outside Section 2(h). Part N works through exactly what this means in practice.

B.5 2(j) — Right to information (four components)

The "right to information" is the right to information accessible under this Act, held by or under the control of any public authority, and includes the right to:

1. inspection of work, documents and records;
2. taking notes, extracts or certified copies of documents or records;
3. taking certified samples of material;
4. obtaining information in the form of diskettes, floppies, tapes, video cassettes or in any other electronic mode, or through printouts, where such information is stored in a computer or any other device.

Trap: This is a list of rights an applicant may exercise once entitled to information, not a list of what a PIO must always provide on demand. It does not, for instance, entitle an applicant to demand that a PIO manufacture a fresh electronic file that never existed — that limit comes from the Section 2(f) point above.

B.6 2(n) — Third party (the classic trap)

A "third party" means a person other than the citizen making the request, and expressly includes a public authority.

Trap: Students routinely assume "third party" means only a private individual or a private company. It does not. If disclosing the requested record would reveal information supplied by, or confidential to, another government department, that department is a "third party" too, and the Section 11 procedure (Part G) applies exactly as it would for a private person.

THE RIGHT ITSELF AND PROACTIVE DISCLOSURE (SECTIONS 3–4)

C.1 Section 3 — the right

Section 3 is a single sentence: "Subject to the provisions of this Act, all citizens shall have the right to information."

Two limits are embedded in that one sentence: (i) only citizens may exercise the right — not foreign nationals, and, on the settled view, not corporations as such; and (ii) the right is itself "subject to" the Act's own internal limits — meaning Sections 8, 9, 24 and the rest of the Act qualify Section 3 rather than sitting outside it.

C.2 Section 4 — obligations of public authorities (proactive / suo motu disclosure)

Section 4 is the Act's least-used, most-important section: the idea that a public authority that publishes enough about itself on its own initiative reduces the need for anyone to file a formal application at all.

Section 4(1)(a) — every public authority must maintain all its records duly catalogued and indexed, and must, within a reasonable time and subject to available resources, get records suitable for computerisation computerised and networked.

Section 4(1)(b) — every public authority must publish, within 120 days of enactment, 17 categories of information about itself, and must update these publications every year thereafter:

1. particulars of its organisation, functions and duties;
2. powers and duties of its officers and employees;
3. the procedure followed in decision-making, including channels of supervision and accountability;
4. norms set for the discharge of its functions;
5. rules, regulations, instructions, manuals and records held or used by its employees for discharging functions;
6. a statement of the categories of documents held by or under its control;
7. particulars of any arrangement for consultation with, or representation by, members of the public in policy formulation or its implementation;
8. a statement of the boards, councils, committees and other bodies of two or more persons constituted for advice, and whether meetings of those bodies are open to the public, or the minutes accessible;
9. a directory of its officers and employees;
10. the monthly remuneration received by each of its officers and employees, including the system of compensation;
11. the budget allocated to each agency, indicating plans, proposed expenditures and reports on disbursements;
12. the manner of execution of subsidy programmes, including amounts allocated and the details of beneficiaries;
13. particulars of recipients of concessions, permits or authorisations;
14. details of information available with it, held in electronic form;
15. particulars of the facilities available to citizens for obtaining information, including the working hours of a library or reading room, if maintained for public use;
16. the names, designations and other particulars of Public Information Officers;
17. such other information as may be prescribed.

Sections 4(1)(c) and 4(1)(d) — the authority must publish all relevant facts while formulating important policies or announcing decisions affecting the public, and must give reasons for its administrative or quasi-judicial decisions to affected persons.

Section 4(2) — a public authority must make constant endeavour to provide as much information suo motu, at regular intervals, through various means including the internet, so that the public has minimum resort to filing formal applications under the Act. Section 4(3) requires wide dissemination in an easily accessible form; Section 4(4) requires the authority to consider cost-effectiveness, local language, and the most effective local method of communication.

Trap: "17" and "120 days" are two separate numbers describing two separate things — the count of categories, and the deadline to first publish them. The commonest wrong option swaps 120 days for the 100-day deadline that belongs to Section 5 (Part D) instead.

PUBLIC INFORMATION OFFICERS AND ASSISTANT PIOs (SECTION 5)

This is the section that turns a school head into a PIO. Read it twice.

D.1 Designating the PIO — Section 5(1)

Every public authority must, within 100 days of enactment, designate as many officers as Central or State Public Information Officers as may be necessary, in all its administrative units or offices.

D.2 The Assistant PIO and the extra five days — Section 5(2)

Within the same 100 days, every public authority must also designate, at each sub-divisional or sub-district level, a Central or State Assistant Public Information Officer (APIO). The APIO's job is narrow and specific: to receive applications (and appeals) and to forward them forthwith to the relevant PIO, the senior officer handling first appeals under Section 19(1), the CIC, or the SIC, as the case may be.

The proviso that shows up in the timeline table: where an application or appeal is given to an APIO instead of directly to the PIO, five extra days are added when computing the response period under Section 7(1) — giving 30 + 5 = 35 days in total. This is the single most-tested "why is it 35, not 30" fact in the chapter.

D.3 Assistance, and the deemed-PIO trap — Sections 5(3)–5(5)

• 5(3) — every PIO must deal with requests and render reasonable assistance to persons seeking information.
• 5(4) — a PIO may seek the assistance of any other officer for the proper discharge of duties.
• 5(5) — the officer whose assistance is sought shall render all assistance, and, for the purposes of any contravention of the Act, shall be treated as a PIO — a deemed PIO, personally exposed to Section 20 exactly as if formally designated.

Trap: Section 5(5) is not a footnote. It means the formal title on your appointment order is not the last word on your liability. If you are the officer actually asked to locate or approve a record — whether or not "PIO" appears in your designation — failing to help can make you personally liable as if you were the PIO. Part N returns to this.

THE REQUEST AND THE CLOCKS (SECTIONS 6–7)

This Part carries the single densest cluster of numbers in the chapter. Learn the table in E.3 before anything else in this Part; everything above it explains where each number comes from.

E.1 Making a request — Section 6

6(1) — a request must be made in writing or by electronic means, in English, Hindi, or the official language of the area, accompanied by the prescribed fee, to the CPIO/SPIO or to a CAPIO/SAPIO, specifying the particulars of the information sought. Proviso — if the request cannot be made in writing, the PIO must render all reasonable assistance to reduce the oral request to writing.

6(2) — the applicant shall not be required to give any reason for the request, nor to supply any personal details except those necessary for contacting him or her.

6(3) — where the information sought is held by another public authority, or the subject matter is more closely connected with another public authority's functions, the application (or the relevant part of it) must be transferred to that authority, and the applicant informed immediately. Proviso — the transfer must be made as soon as practicable, and in no case later than 5 days from receipt.

Trap: Section 6(2) is a favourite two-part trick. Statement-I/II questions like to assert (correctly) that no reason need be given, and then separately assert (also correctly) that some contact details may still be required — testing whether you read both halves of the same sub-section rather than assuming it is an absolute bar on all personal information.

E.2 Disposal of the request — Section 7

7(1) — the PIO must, as expeditiously as possible, and in any case within 30 days of receipt, either provide the information on payment of the prescribed fee, or reject it for reasons falling under Sections 8 or 9. Proviso — where the information concerns the life or liberty of a person, the period is 48 hours.

7(2) — failure to give a decision within the specified period is a deemed refusal.

7(3) — where a further fee (the actual cost of providing the information) must be paid, the PIO sends an intimation stating the fee with the calculation, and informing the applicant of the right to review the fee decision, with particulars of the appellate authority, the time limit, and the process. The period between the despatch of that intimation and the applicant's payment of the fee is excluded — it does not count towards the 30 days.

7(4) — where the applicant is sensorily disabled, the PIO must provide assistance to enable access, including assistance appropriate for inspection.

7(5) — fees for printed or electronic material are as prescribed. Proviso — fees under Sections 6(1), 7(1) and 7(5) must be reasonable, and no fee may be charged from a person below the poverty line, as determined by the appropriate Government.

7(6) — if the public authority fails to comply with the time limits in Section 7(1), the information must be given free of charge.

7(7) — before deciding, the PIO must consider any third-party representation made under Section 11.

7(8) — on rejecting a request, the PIO must communicate: (i) the reasons; (ii) the period within which an appeal may be filed; and (iii) the particulars of the appellate authority.

7(9) — information must ordinarily be provided in the form in which it is sought, unless doing so would disproportionately divert the resources of the public authority, or would be detrimental to the safety or preservation of the record.

E.3 The master timeline table — the highest-yield table in this chapter

Trap: These eleven numbers get shuffled into match-the-following and multi-statement items constantly. The two most common swaps are (a) 35 days (APIO) with 90 days (second appeal), and (b) the 5-day transfer clock with the 5-day third-party-notice clock — two entirely different actions that happen to share the same number.

EXEMPTIONS: SECTIONS 8 AND 9 — AND THE CLAUSE THAT CHANGED ★

F.1 Section 8(1) — the other nine grounds

Section 8(1) opens: "Notwithstanding anything in this Act, there shall be no obligation to give any citizen —", and then lists ten grounds, (a) to (j). Nine of them have not changed since 2005. The tenth — (j) — has, and gets its own treatment in F.2.

Provisos to Section 8(1): under clause (i), decisions of the Council of Ministers, the reasons for them, and the material on which they were based, must be made public once the decision is taken and the matter is complete or over — but any part of that material that separately falls under another Section 8 exemption is still withheld.

F.2 Section 8(1)(j) — the single most important fact in this chapter ★

The text as originally enacted (2005), in force until November 2025:

"(j) information which relates to personal information the disclosure of which has no relationship to any public activity or interest, or which would cause unwarranted invasion of the privacy of the individual unless the Central Public Information Officer or the State Public Information Officer or the appellate authority, as the case may be, is satisfied that the larger public interest justifies the disclosure of such information: Provided that the information which cannot be denied to the Parliament or a State Legislature shall not be denied to any person."

Unpack that into three moving parts, because every one of them was tested for seventeen years and every one of them is now gone:

1. A relevance test — was the information connected to a public activity or interest?
2. A harm test — would disclosure be an unwarranted invasion of privacy?
3. An override — even if both tests pointed towards secrecy, the PIO or appellate authority could still order disclosure if satisfied that the larger public interest justified it — plus a proviso that anything Parliament or a State Legislature could not be refused, could not be refused to any citizen either.

The text as substituted by Section 44(3) of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, in force from 13/14 November 2025 — the CURRENT law:

"(j) information which relates to personal information."

That is the whole clause. The relevance test, the harm test, the public-interest override, and the Parliament/Legislature proviso have all been deleted, not narrowed. On the face of clause (j) itself, there is no longer any internal test to argue about — if the information "relates to personal information," clause (j) applies.

Trap — the safety valve that survives, and why it is not the same thing. Section 8(2) — a general provision applying across all of Section 8(1), not specific to clause (j) — still lets a public authority allow access where "public interest in disclosure outweighs the harm to the protected interests." The government's own defence of the amendment rests on this: Section 8(2) is said to preserve balance. But Section 8(2) is a general, discretionary power sitting outside clause (j), not a built-in, mandatory test that a PIO must apply before even reaching the exemption — which is exactly what the old clause (j) required. Critics argue this difference matters in practice: a PIO who need not weigh public interest before refusing will usually not volunteer to weigh it afterwards either.

Exactly when this became the law — do not guess at this, it is checkable. The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 received assent on 11 August 2023, but Section 44(3) was not automatically "live" from that date — Section 1(2) of the DPDP Act lets the Central Government bring different provisions into force on different notified dates. The Central Government notified the commencement of Section 44(3) (along with several other provisions) with effect from 13 November 2025 — the same window in which the Digital Personal Data Protection Rules, 2025 were separately notified, on 14 November 2025. From that date, the substituted clause (j) above is operative law, not merely enacted text waiting on a shelf.

Where the Supreme Court stands, as of today (August 2026) — read this carefully, because it is not a "yes/no" fact. On 16 February 2026, a Supreme Court Bench headed by the Chief Justice heard connected writ petitions challenging the amendment (including petitions filed by transparency activists and press-freedom organisations). The Bench:

• issued notice to the Union of India on the challenge;
• declined to grant an interim stay of the amendment; and
• referred the matter to a larger Bench for final determination, observing that the Court would have to weigh privacy against the right to information carefully before reaching a "definite conclusion."

The matter did not end there. On 7 August 2026, the Supreme Court again heard the matter and granted the Union of India a further two weeks to file its response — meaning that, as of the date this chapter was written, the constitutional challenge remains pending, undecided, and unstayed.

Put those two facts together and you have the position an exam-writer needs: the amended Section 8(1)(j) — the bare "personal information" exemption — is the current, operative law, and has been since November 2025. It has not been struck down, and it has not been stayed. A challenge is alive before a larger Bench, and the outcome of that challenge is genuinely unknown. Teach the new text as the current law. Know that it is contested. Do not assume either that the challenge has failed or that it has succeeded — as of today, it has done neither.

Trap — a case decided under the wrong text. In August 2025, the Delhi High Court ruled (in litigation concerning the disclosure of a public figure's educational mark-sheets and degree certificates) that such academic records are exempt "personal information," and that "public curiosity is not the same as public interest." That ruling predates the DPDP-amended clause by about three months and applied the OLD text — the one with the larger-public-interest test built in. It remains a live illustration of how courts weighed personal information before the amendment; it cannot be cited as an application of the current bare-exemption text, because the current text did not exist yet when it was decided. Part M returns to this case, and Q27 and Q46 in the Practice Bank drill this exact distinction from two directions.

F.3 Section 8(2) and 8(3) — the override and the sunset clause

Section 8(2) — notwithstanding anything in the Official Secrets Act, 1923, or any of the exemptions in Section 8(1), a public authority may allow access to information if the public interest in disclosure outweighs the harm to the protected interests.

Section 8(3) — the 20-year rule. Subject to clauses (a), (c) and (i) of Section 8(1), information relating to any occurrence, event or matter that took place 20 years before the date of the request must be provided. Proviso — any dispute about the date from which the 20 years is to be computed is decided by the Central Government, whose decision is final, subject to the Act's usual appeals.

So, after 20 years, the exemptions at (b), (d), (e), (f), (g), (h) and (j) fall away — but (a) sovereignty/security, (c) parliamentary privilege, and (i) Cabinet papers remain perpetual exemptions, unaffected by the passage of time.

F.4 Section 9 — the one discretionary ground

Without prejudice to Section 8, a PIO may reject a request where providing access would involve an infringement of copyright subsisting in a person other than the State.

Trap: State copyright is not a ground for rejection under Section 9. And the word is "may" — Section 9 is the Act's one and only discretionary rejection ground; every ground in Section 8 is phrased as a mandatory "no obligation," while Section 9 leaves the PIO a choice.

SEVERABILITY AND THIRD PARTIES (SECTIONS 10–11)

G.1 Section 10 — severability

10(1) — where a request is refused because a record contains exempt information, access may still be given to the part of the record that does not contain exempt information, provided that part can reasonably be severed from the exempt part.

10(2) — when granting such partial access, the PIO must give a notice stating: (a) that only part of the record is being provided, after severance; (b) the reasons for the decision, including findings on any material question of fact; (c) the name and designation of the person deciding; (d) details of the fee calculated; and (e) the applicant's rights of review, with the relevant particulars.

G.2 Section 11 — third-party information

11(1) — where a PIO intends to disclose information or a record that relates to, or was supplied by, a third party and has been treated as confidential by that third party, the PIO must, within 5 days of receiving the request, give the third party written notice, inviting a submission in writing or orally; the submission must be kept in view while deciding. Proviso — except for trade or commercial secrets protected by law, disclosure may still be allowed if the public interest in disclosure outweighs in importance any possible harm to the third party's interests.

11(2) — the third party has 10 days from receipt of the notice to make a representation.

11(3) — notwithstanding Section 7, the PIO must, within 40 days of receiving the request (where the third party was given an opportunity to be heard), decide whether to disclose, and give written notice of the decision to the third party.

11(4) — that notice must state that the third party is entitled to prefer an appeal under Section 19.

Trap: A third party who is told information about them will be disclosed is not left without a remedy — Section 19(2) gives the third party a right of appeal in exactly the same way an applicant who is refused information has one. "The third party has no appeal" is a routinely planted false statement.

THE INFORMATION COMMISSIONS: CONSTITUTION, TERM AND REMOVAL (SECTIONS 12–17) ★

H.1 The Central Information Commission — constitution (Section 12)

12(1) — the Central Government, by notification in the Official Gazette, constitutes the Central Information Commission.

12(2) — composition: (a) the Chief Information Commissioner; and (b) such number of Central Information Commissioners, not exceeding TEN, as deemed necessary. Maximum possible strength: 11.

12(3) — appointed by the President, on the recommendation of a committee consisting of:

1. the Prime Minister — Chairperson;
2. the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha;
3. a Union Cabinet Minister nominated by the Prime Minister.

Explanation — where no Leader of Opposition is recognised in the Lok Sabha, the Leader of the single largest group in Opposition is deemed to be the Leader of Opposition for this purpose.

12(4) — general superintendence, direction and management vests in the Chief Information Commissioner, assisted by the Information Commissioners; the Commission functions autonomously, without being subject to directions from any other authority.

12(5) — eligibility: persons of eminence in public life, with wide knowledge and experience in law, science and technology, social service, management, journalism, mass media, or administration and governance — seven named fields.

12(6) — disqualifications: shall not be a Member of Parliament or of a State/UT Legislature; shall not hold any other office of profit; shall not be connected with any political party; shall not carry on any business; and shall not pursue any profession.

12(7) — headquarters at Delhi; other offices elsewhere in India only with the previous approval of the Central Government.

H.2 Term and salary — Section 13, then and now ★

This is where a 2011-edition source will actively mislead you, because the section it describes was rewritten in 2019.

Before the RTI (Amendment) Act, 2019:

After the RTI (Amendment) Act, 2019 — the current law: Parliament amended Sections 13(1) and 13(2) to remove the fixed five-year term and replace it with "such term as may be prescribed by the Central Government," and substituted Section 13(5) so that salaries and allowances are likewise "such as may be prescribed by the Central Government," while keeping a safeguard that service conditions, once fixed, cannot be varied to a sitting Commissioner's disadvantage, and a savings clause that anyone appointed before the amendment continues under the old terms.

The Central Government then exercised that new rule-making power through the Right to Information (Term of Office, Salaries, Allowances and Other Terms and Conditions of Service of Chief Information Commissioner, Information Commissioners in the Central Information Commission, State Chief Information Commissioner and State Information Commissioners in the State Information Commission) Rules, 2019, notified on 24 October 2019:

Trap ★: Two figures are frequently swapped: the Chief Information Commissioner's ₹2,50,000 with the Information Commissioner's ₹2,25,000; and the "5 years" that governed before 2019 with the "3 years" that governs now. If a question does not say "as originally enacted" or "before 2019," assume it is asking about the current position — 3 years, and the flat rupee figures above.

Why "moving this from statute to executive rule" is itself the criticism. When a rule sits inside the Act, only Parliament can change it — through open debate, in both Houses. When the same rule sits in a Rules notification made by the Central Government under delegated power, the very same executive whose decisions the Commission exists to scrutinise can alter a sitting Commissioner's future service conditions by notification, without returning to Parliament for that specific change. Critics argue this makes institutional independence hostage to executive goodwill — which is precisely why the pre-2019 scheme pegged the CIC's pay to a constitutional officer (the CEC) in the first place: it was a visible marker of insulation from ordinary executive control. There is also a federal-balance version of the same criticism: it is now the Central Government's rule that fixes the term and salary even of State Chief Information Commissioners and State Information Commissioners, even though it is the State Government that appoints them. The government's defence, for balance: the CIC is a statutory body created by an ordinary Act of Parliament, not a constitutional body like the Election Commission, so equating its officers' pay with the CEC's was itself anomalous, and each individual appointee's terms still cannot be worsened after appointment.

H.3 Removal — Section 14

14(1) — the Chief Information Commissioner or an Information Commissioner is removed only by order of the President, on the ground of proved misbehaviour or incapacity, and only after the Supreme Court, on a reference made by the President, has, on inquiry, reported that he ought to be removed.

14(2) — pending that reference, the President may suspend him from office, and, if necessary, prohibit him from attending office.

14(3) — notwithstanding 14(1), the President may directly remove the CIC/IC if he: (a) is adjudged an insolvent; (b) has been convicted of an offence involving moral turpitude; (c) engages in paid employment outside his office during his term; (d) is, in the President's opinion, unfit to continue by reason of infirmity of mind or body; or (e) has acquired a financial or other interest likely to prejudicially affect his functions.

14(4) — deemed misbehaviour: being concerned or interested in any contract or agreement made by or on behalf of the Government of India, or sharing in its profit, benefit or emolument (other than as a common shareholder of an incorporated company), is deemed misbehaviour for the purposes of 14(1).

H.4 State Information Commissions — Sections 15–17 (a structural mirror)

Sections 15–17 largely repeat Sections 12–14 with the Centre's institutions replaced by the State's. Learn only the differences.

Trap: even for State Commissioners, the inquiry into removal is conducted by the Supreme Court, not the High Court of that State. This is one of the most frequently misstated facts in the whole Act.

COMPLAINT VERSUS APPEAL (SECTIONS 18–19)

I.1 Section 18 — the complaint jurisdiction

The Commission has a duty to receive and inquire into a complaint from any person who —

• (a) was unable to submit a request because no PIO has been appointed, or the APIO refused to accept the application or appeal for forwarding;
• (b) was refused access to any information requested;
• (c) was not given a response within the specified time;
• (d) was required to pay a fee considered unreasonable;
• (e) believes he or she has been given incomplete, misleading or false information; or
• (f) raises any other matter relating to requesting or obtaining access to records.

While inquiring, the Commission has the powers of a civil court under the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 — summoning witnesses, requiring discovery and inspection of documents, receiving evidence on affidavit, requisitioning public records, and issuing summons for examining witnesses or documents. Under Section 18(4), the Commission may, notwithstanding anything inconsistent in any other Act, examine any record under the public authority's control, and no record may be withheld from it on any ground.

Trap: merely being unhappy with a decision that was received on time and on the merits is not, by itself, a Section 18 ground — a mere policy or political disagreement with a correct, timely answer is not a "complaint" the Commission is bound to inquire into.

I.2 Section 19 — the appeal ladder

19(5) — the burden of proving that a denial of a request was justified lies on the PIO who denied it — a reversed burden of proof that favours the applicant throughout the appeal process.

19(6) — the first appeal must be disposed of within 30 days of receipt, extendable to a total of 45 days from the date of filing, for reasons recorded in writing.

19(7) — the decision of the CIC or SIC is binding.

19(8) — in deciding, the Commission may: (a) require the public authority to take steps to secure compliance — including providing access in a particular form, appointing a PIO, publishing information, changing record-management practices, enhancing training, or filing an annual compliance report; (b) require the public authority to compensate the complainant for loss or detriment suffered; (c) impose any penalty under the Act; or (d) reject the application.

I.3 The distinction the examiner loves

This distinction was affirmed in Chief Information Commissioner v. State of Manipur (2011): a complainant cannot use Section 18 as a substitute route to obtain a disclosure order that only Section 19's appeal machinery is designed to give.

PENALTIES (SECTION 20)

20(1) — where the Commission, in deciding a complaint or appeal, is of the opinion that a PIO has, without any reasonable cause: refused to receive an application; not furnished information within the Section 7(1) time limit; malafidely denied the request; knowingly given incorrect, incomplete or misleading information; destroyed information that was the subject of the request; or obstructed the furnishing of information in any manner — the Commission shall impose a penalty of ₹250 for each day of delay, until the application is received or the information furnished, subject to a maximum of ₹25,000.

• Proviso 1 — the PIO must be given a reasonable opportunity of being heard before any penalty is imposed.
• Proviso 2 — the burden of proving that he acted reasonably and diligently lies on the PIO.

20(2) — where the PIO has, without reasonable cause and persistently, committed any of the same defaults, the Commission shall recommend disciplinary action against the officer under the service rules applicable to him.

Mnemonic: ₹250 a day, ₹25,000 the ceiling — a hundred days of pure default maxes it out. Notice the difference in trigger: 20(1) needs "without reasonable cause"; 20(2) needs "without reasonable cause and persistently." Notice too that Section 20 is not automatic — it requires a hearing, and it puts the burden of proof on the PIO, not on the complainant, to show reasonable and diligent conduct.

This is the section that makes Part N of this chapter more than an academic exercise: it is a personal, monetary and disciplinary exposure that attaches to the individual officer, not to the school or the Directorate as an institution.

THE MISCELLANEOUS SECTIONS AND THE SCHEDULES (SECTIONS 21–31) ★

K.1 Protection, overriding effect, and the bar on courts

K.2 Section 24 — organisations the Act does not reach, and the Second Schedule ★

24(1) — the Act does not apply to intelligence and security organisations specified in the Second Schedule, established by the Central Government, nor to information furnished by them to that Government. Proviso 1 — information about allegations of corruption and human rights violations shall NOT be excluded. Proviso 2 — where the information relates to allegations of human rights violations, it must be provided only after the approval of the CIC, and, notwithstanding Section 7, within 45 days of the request.

24(2) — the Central Government may amend the Second Schedule, by Gazette notification, adding or omitting organisations. 24(3) — every such notification must be laid before each House of Parliament.

24(4)/(5) — mirror provisions let a State Government notify its own exempt intelligence/security organisations, with the same corruption/human-rights carve-outs, human-rights information going through the SIC instead, and notifications laid before the State Legislature.

The Second Schedule — what the 2011 edition told you, and what is true now. Your source material's list of 22 organisations reflects the Schedule roughly as it stood before a run of additions that all came after the 1 February 2011 cut-off. As of August 2026:

• Confirmed current total: 27 — the most recent addition is the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), added by a Department of Personnel and Training notification dated 23 November 2023, inserted at serial number 27.
• The organisations added between the 2011 cut-off and CERT-In include the Central Bureau of Investigation (notified 9 June 2011), and the National Investigation Agency and National Intelligence Grid (NATGRID) (both added around the same period in 2011) — all three fall just after your source edition's cut-off date, which is most of the arithmetic gap between "22" and "27." A further organisation, the Strategic Forces Command, was added later — reported as the first such addition made after 2014 — though this chapter could not independently pin down its exact notification date; treat that one date as unverified rather than memorised.
• The current Schedule also carries a blank serial number 7 in its official numbering — an entry that has been omitted at some point in the Schedule's several re-issues. This chapter could not independently confirm why, and does not ask you to memorise a reason for it; know only that the numbering is not continuous, so "27 serial numbers" and "27 organisations" are not quite the same statement (26 organisations are actually named).
• A few secondary sources claim a higher total (29). This chapter could not verify two further additions beyond CERT-In from a primary source, and does not teach 29 as a fact — if you encounter that figure elsewhere, treat it as unconfirmed, not as a correction to the 27 given here.

Trap ★: "22" is the single most out-of-date number a 2011-edition candidate is likely to carry into this exam. If a question gives you a specific current count, 27 is the best-supported answer; do not let an option offering "26" (the position immediately before CERT-In) go unnoticed as the near-miss distractor it is designed to be.

K.3 Sections 25–30 — monitoring, programmes and rule-making

K.4 Section 31 and the First Schedule

Section 31 repeals the Freedom of Information Act, 2002 (5 of 2003) — the RTI Act's short-lived, never-fully-notified predecessor.

The First Schedule [Sections 13(3), 16(3)] prescribes the form of oath or affirmation for the CIC, an IC, a State CIC, or a State IC — swearing true faith and allegiance to the Constitution, to uphold the sovereignty and integrity of India, and to perform the duties of office faithfully, without fear or favour, affection or ill-will.

WHAT CHANGED AFTER THE 2011 EDITION: THE FULL PATCH ★

If your revision material is a Government of India edition "as modified up to 1 February 2011," treat this Part as your patch file. Every row below is a place where that edition's text is either incomplete or actively wrong today.

Trap ★: if any option in a question states a fact using the language "the Act provides that…" for the term or salary of a Commissioner, that language is a leftover from before 2019. The Act itself no longer fixes either figure — it delegates both to the Central Government, and it is the Rules, not the Act, that currently state 3 years and the rupee amounts above.

CASE LAW, ONE LINE EACH

M.1 Foundational cases (pre-2019)

M.2 Case law after 2019

• CPIO, Supreme Court of India v. Subhash Chandra Agarwal (13 November 2019, a five-judge Bench headed by the then Chief Justice) — held that the office of the Chief Justice of India is a "public authority" under the RTI Act, and is not a separate authority from the Supreme Court itself; disclosure of judges' personal or fiduciary information (such as asset declarations) remains subject to a balancing/proportionality test, not automatic disclosure.
• Political parties as public authorities — a full bench of the CIC, on 3 June 2013, declared six national political parties public authorities under Section 2(h), owing to substantial indirect government funding (land, tax exemption, free airtime); the parties have not complied, and the order has never been enforced. Separately, writ petitions asking the Supreme Court to give this the force of a binding judicial declaration have been pending since 2015 (Association for Democratic Reforms) and 2019 (a second petitioner) — as of the last confirmed hearing, the matter remained undecided.
• Anjali Bhardwaj v. Union of India — the Supreme Court has repeatedly directed the Centre and the States to fill vacancies in the CIC and the SICs in a timely, transparent manner, publish selection criteria, and disclose search-committee particulars — the same litigation lineage behind the Commission's eventual return to full strength in December 2025 (Part L).
• University of Delhi v. Neeraj and connected matters — Delhi High Court, 25 August 2025 — held that educational mark-sheets and degree certificates are "personal information" exempt from disclosure, and that "public curiosity is not the same as public interest," even for a high public-office holder. This was decided under the pre-DPDP text of Section 8(1)(j), roughly three months before the substituted clause came into force — see the Trap in Part F.2. It is good law on how courts weighed the old test; it says nothing about how the new, bare exemption should be read.
• The Supreme Court's own ongoing engagement with Section 8(1)(j) — notice issued and interim stay declined on 16 February 2026; the Union of India given a further two weeks to respond on 7 August 2026; the challenge remains with a larger Bench, undecided as of today (Part F.2).

THE SCHOOL HEAD AS PIO: A WORKED WALKTHROUGH

N.1 Is your school a "public authority"? Yes — without argument

Return to Section 2(h) (Part B.4). A Directorate of Education government school is established and run under government orders, and is owned and wholly financed by the Government of NCT of Delhi — it satisfies Section 2(h) on at least two independent grounds at once. A government-aided school need not be wholly government-owned to qualify either: "substantially financed" by the appropriate Government is enough on its own (Section 2(h)(i)). What does not automatically qualify is a purely private, unaided school that has never received government ownership, control or substantial financing — though even there, information about it that the Directorate can lawfully access under some other law counts as "information" under Section 2(f) and can be sought through the Directorate.

Trap: "This is a private school, so the RTI Act does not touch it at all" is too strong a statement whenever the school has received government land, a subsidy, tax concessions, or deputed teachers — the Central Information Commission has held even a private school benefiting from concessional government land to be a public authority on the facts. A Directorate of Education government school does not need any of this analysis; it is a public authority on the plainest possible reading of Section 2(h).

N.2 Who, exactly, is the PIO?

The general legal answer is straightforward: whoever the public authority has designated under Section 5(1) as PIO for that unit or office is the PIO for it. In practice, across Directorates of Education, the working model is that the Head of School — the Principal, or the Vice Principal acting for the Principal — is the person who actually holds the school's own records (attendance, admission, staff postings at that school, fee-reimbursement claims, inspection reports) and is therefore the natural point of contact for any RTI application about that school specifically, while records held centrally (recruitment, transfer orders, budget allocations across schools) sit with an officer at the zonal or Directorate-headquarters level instead.

This chapter is deliberately honest about one gap. It could not independently verify, from a single current Directorate circular, whether every Delhi government school's Head is formally gazetted as "PIO" or is instead formally an "Assistant PIO" with the true decision-making PIO sitting at the Deputy Director of Education (zone) level, receiving forwarded applications from the school. Different Directorate circulars, over the years, are not guaranteed to say the same thing for every category of school. Do not let this uncertainty worry you as a future officer, for one reason: Section 5(5).

Section 5(5) (Part D.3) says that any officer whose assistance is sought, who fails to render it, is treated as a PIO for the purposes of any contravention — regardless of the title actually printed on the designation order. If you are the officer who actually has the file, and you sit on it, delay it, or mishandle it, the ₹250-a-day exposure in Section 20 can reach you whether your formal title says "PIO" or "APIO." Treat every clock in this chapter as your clock, whatever your letterhead says.

N.3 A worked walkthrough

An RTI application, correctly addressed, physically or through the RTI Online portal, reaches the desk of the Principal of a Directorate of Education school. It asks for: (1) copies of the fee-reimbursement claims filed under Section 12(1)(c) of the RTE Act for the last three academic years (see Chapter 6 for what that quota is); and (2) the number of sanctioned and vacant teaching posts at the school.

Ten things to do the day an RTI application lands on your desk

1. Date-stamp it the day it arrives — that date starts your clock.
2. Do not ask the applicant for a reason. You are not entitled to one (Section 6(2)).
3. Check the fee; check for a BPL exemption claim.
4. Work out exactly what you hold, and what belongs to another office.
5. Transfer what does not belong to you, in writing, within 5 days, and tell the applicant you have done so.
6. Check Section 8 and Section 9 against the actual content, not the subject-matter label, of the file.
7. If a third party's confidential information is involved, issue the Section 11 notice within 5 days.
8. Sever, do not blanket-refuse, wherever part of a record is exempt and part is not (Section 10).
9. Decide and communicate in writing, with reasons, well inside 30 days — do not wait for day 29 to start reading the file.
10. If you must refuse, tell the applicant exactly where and how to appeal — that is your legal duty under Section 7(8), not a courtesy.

N.4 What personal liability actually means here

Nothing in Section 20 is about your school, your Directorate, or the Government of NCT of Delhi as an institution. It is about you, named as an officer, having to justify your conduct, with you carrying the burden of proof, facing a penalty that is deducted, in practice, from your own pay. Read that sentence again the week you are confirmed in post — not only the week before this exam.

DELHI: THE STATE INFORMATION COMMISSION AND YOUR SCHOOL

O.1 The Delhi State Information Commission

The NCT of Delhi has its own State Information Commission, distinct from the Central Information Commission, constituted under Section 15 for second appeals and complaints against public authorities of the Government of NCT of Delhi — which includes the Directorate of Education and, through it, its schools. The practical institutional chain for a Delhi government school runs: PIO (the school) → first appeal to a senior officer inside the Directorate → second appeal to the Delhi State Information Commission — the Central Information Commission is not the forum for a Delhi government school's second appeals.

Honest hedge: this chapter could not verify, from a current primary source, the Delhi State Information Commission's present headship or the state of its vacancies as of August 2026. Part L records that several State Information Commissions elsewhere in the country have run without a functioning bench for extended periods in recent years; whether Delhi's Commission is presently fully staffed is a fact this chapter deliberately does not guess at. If this matters to you operationally, verify it locally rather than relying on any figure not given here.

O.2 Fees, in practice

The central RTI Rules, 2012 fee schedule — ₹10 application fee, ₹2 per page for photocopying, no charge for the first hour of inspection and ₹5 for each subsequent hour, and a full waiver for BPL applicants (Part E and the Revision Sheet below give the rule numbers) — is what most applicants and most guides quote as "the" RTI fee. This chapter has not independently verified whether the Government of NCT of Delhi has separately notified its own fee rules, identical in figures or otherwise, for its own departments and schools. Treat the ₹10/₹2-per-page figures as the safe, well-sourced central position, and check your own school's specific notified fee rule before relying on it operationally.

O.3 The quick map

THE EXAMINER'S ANGLE

Seven stock patterns account for almost every RTI question this exam is likely to ask.

1. Section-number matching. Sections 2(a)/(e)/(f)/(h)/(j)/(n), 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12–20, 24 — presented as direct recall, as match-the-following, or as "under which section...?" Your defence is the master tables in Parts B, E, F and K.
2. Timeline-pair swaps. 30 / 48 hours / 35 / 5 / 10 / 40 / 45 / 90 — eleven numbers built to be shuffled. Learn the table in Part E.3 until you can reproduce it without looking.
3. The old-text-versus-new-text trap. Any provision this chapter marks ★ — Section 8(1)(j), the Section 13/16 term and salary, the Second Schedule count, the extent to Jammu & Kashmir — can be tested by simply printing the pre-change position as a plausible-looking option. If a question does not explicitly say "as originally enacted" or "before 2019/2023," assume it is asking about the position today.
4. Who does what. PIO vs Assistant PIO vs first appellate authority vs Commission; President vs Governor; the PM-led committee vs the CM-led committee; Supreme Court (removal inquiry, for both Central and State Commissioners) vs any State High Court. Swapped-body options are the default distractor across this entire chapter.
5. "Which of the following is NOT…" list questions. The Section 18 complaint grounds, the Section 8(1) exemption grounds, the Section 4(1)(b) categories — the wrong option is almost always a plausible-sounding phrase borrowed from a neighbouring list or invented outright.
6. Section 8 vs Section 9, and Section 18 vs Section 19. Two structurally identical-looking traps: a mandatory "no obligation" ground dressed up as discretionary, or vice versa; and a supervisory complaint dressed up as an appellate remedy, or vice versa.
7. Current-position items, stated as of today. Is the amended Section 8(1)(j) in force? Yes, since November 2025. Has the Supreme Court stayed it? No — notice issued, referred to a larger Bench, no stay, as recently as 7 August 2026. Does the Act apply to Jammu & Kashmir? Yes, since 31 October 2019. Is the CIC currently at full strength? Yes, since 13–15 December 2025.

COMMON ERRORS THAT COST MARKS

1. Treating Section 8(1)(j) as if it still contains the "larger public interest" test. It does not, since November 2025. The current text is a bare exemption for "information which relates to personal information."
2. Assuming the Supreme Court has settled the DPDP-RTI question one way or the other. It has not, as of today — notice issued, stay declined, referred to a larger Bench, still pending.
3. Citing the Delhi High Court's August 2025 educational-records ruling as an application of the current Section 8(1)(j). It was decided under the old text, roughly three months before the substitution took effect.
4. Confusing Section 18 (complaint) with Section 19 (appeal). Different filing rules, different time limits, different powers — see Part I.3's comparison table.
5. Sending a second appeal within 30 days, or a first appeal within 90. The numbers are 30 for the first appeal and 90 for the second — swapping them is the single most common timeline error.
6. Assuming a State Information Commissioner is removed after an inquiry by that State's High Court. It is always the Supreme Court, for both Central and State Commissioners alike.
7. Believing the term of a Chief Information Commissioner is still 5 years. It is 3 years, fixed by the RTI Rules, 2019, since the RTI (Amendment) Act, 2019 removed the fixed term from the Act itself.
8. Confusing Section 8 (mandatory exemption — "no obligation to give") with Section 9 (discretionary rejection — copyright only, "may reject").
9. Forgetting that the extra 5 days under Section 5(2)'s proviso applies only when the application is routed through an Assistant PIO — not to every application by default.
10. Assuming the Section 20 penalty is automatic, unlimited, or imposed without a hearing. It requires a hearing, is capped at ₹25,000, and places the burden of proving reasonable and diligent conduct on the PIO.

COMPRESSED REVISION SHEET

Sheet 1 — The numbers grid (highest-yield table in the chapter)

Sheet 2 — Section map (say it aloud)

Sheet 3 — Who does what

Sheet 4 — The Section 8 exemption grid

Sheet 5 — Cases in one line each

Sheet 6 — What changed after 2011 ★

Sheet 7 — The Section 8(1)(j) timeline card ★