Historical CIC Orders — A Chronological Archive

• Landmark-tier orders get a dedicated page with case analysis — linked here and cross-referenced from the relevant §8 articles.
• Significant orders get a one-line entry with the year, outcome, and a link to the primary source where available.
• News items (commissioner appointments, structural changes) are grouped by year.

For the curated top-ten analysis, see 10 Landmark CIC Decisions That Transformed RTI. For recent rulings (2021–2026), see Landmark Rulings 2021–2026.

• 2005-10-12 — CIC constituted under Section 12 of the RTI Act, 2005. First Chief IC: Wajahat Habibullah.
• 2006 — First full year of operation. Annual report notes ~10,000 registrations; most concerned pension, employment, and public-expenditure queries.
• 2007 — Hari Devi v. Municipal Corporation of Delhi, the CIC held that property-tax files are public-authority records.
• 2008 — CBSE v. Aditya Bandopadhyay (pre-Supreme Court journey) — CIC directed disclosure of evaluated answer scripts; later affirmed by SC (2011) 8 SCC 497.
• 2009 — Full Bench rulings on file notings begin the doctrine that was later sealed by R.K. Jain (2013).

• 2011 — CBSE v. Aditya Bandopadhyay, (2011) 8 SCC 497. Evaluated answer scripts are information; PIOs cannot refuse on fiduciary grounds. See deep dive at RTI for answer-sheet inspection.
• 2013-06-03 — CIC Full Bench (Subhash Chandra Agrawal) held that six national political parties are public authorities under §2(h). Orders to disclose donor lists. Resistance ongoing — see Association for Democratic Reforms cases at SC.
• 2013 — R.K. Jain v. UoI, (2013) 14 SCC 794. Post-decisional file-notings disclosable; subjective ACRs narrowly exempt.
• 2013 — Thalappalam Service Cooperative Bank at Kerala HC (later SC 2013); CIC subsequent orders apply the substantial-financing test.
• 2014 — Girish Ramchandra Deshpande refined — individual service-record items (pay, disciplinary, transfer) become §8(1)(j) presumptive. Integrity certificates treated similarly.

• 2016 — RBI v. Jayantilal Mistry, (2016) 5 SCC 136. CIC's earlier line on regulator-disclosure upheld — banks cannot shield audit reports under §8(1)(d) or §8(1)(e).
• 2017 — Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) v. UoI, (2017) 10 SCC 1. Privacy as fundamental right. CIC subsequently re-calibrates §8(1)(j) orders to apply proportionality.
• 2018 — Major CIC rulings on departmental inquiry files, applying Girish Deshpande and R.K. Jain jointly. Service records become the most common §8(1)(j) battleground.
• 2019-05 — CIC does not allow dissent note of Ashok Lavasa — significant order on Election Commission dissenting notes. See our analysis.
• 2019-08 — RTI (Amendment) Act, 2019. Reduces tenure of CIC / SIC from 5 years to “as prescribed”, changes salary-equivalence. Controversial; contested in writs.
• 2020-09 — CIC CJI Office matter (Subhash Chandra Agrawal) reaches SC — Supreme Court is held to be a “public authority” under RTI; CIC jurisdiction affirmed indirectly.

• 2021 — CIC Annual Report documents ~6 lakh pending second appeals; structural capacity concerns flagged.
• 2022 — Thoufeek Ahmed v. State of Kerala (Kerala HC) — CIC / SIC orders must be reasoned; procedural compliance (hearing PIO and applicant) is reviewable.
• 2023 — Digital Personal Data Protection Act enacted. §44(3) amends RTI §8(1)(j); public-interest override moves from within clause (j) to §8(2). See DPDP Rules 2025 amendment.
• 2024 — Electoral Bonds judgment (SC, 2024) — the ADR challenge is upheld. Impacts political-finance transparency; CIC's earlier ADR orders gain force. See Electoral Bonds SC 2024.
• 2024-07 — Delhi HC Abhishek Shukla v. DU on PhD theses disclosability. CIC line on university records reinforced. See Delhi HC PhD theses ruling.
• 2025-11-14 — DPDP Rules, 2025 notified. §8(1)(j) amendment takes effect. CIC and SICs begin applying the new §8(2)-only framework. See our PIO Framework — §8(1)(j) after DPDP.
• 2026-04 — Landmark rulings page last updated; see Landmark rulings 2021–2026.

Full Bench, CIC (2013) held national parties to be public authorities — enforcement remains contested. See also landmark CIC decisions.

Subhash Chandra Agrawal v. CPIO, Supreme Court — SC holds that asset declarations by judges are in principle disclosable; PIO must apply §8(1)(j) balance.

Ashok Lavasa dissent-note order (2019) — CIC ruled that the dissent note on a Model Code complaint during Lok Sabha elections does not have to be disclosed under RTI. The case drew commentary on the limits of CIC jurisdiction over ECI records.

Girish Ramchandra Deshpande (2013) SC + subsequent CIC orders. Aggregate attendance, posting, and rank-data — disclosable. ACR / APAR / integrity certificate — §8(1)(j) presumptive, subject to §8(2) override.

R.K. Jain (2013) SC + Treesa Irish (Kerala HC 2010) — post-decisional file-notings part of §2(i) record. Cabinet deliberations time-bounded under §8(1)(i).

RBI v. Jayantilal Mistry (2016) SC — audit, inspection, disciplinary records of regulated entities held by regulators are disclosable. Applies to RBI, SEBI, IRDAI, PFRDA.

• 2005 — Wajahat Habibullah, first CIC.
• 2010 — A.N. Tiwari, second CIC.
• 2013 — Deepak Sandhu, third CIC (first woman CIC).
• 2014 — Rajiv Mathur, fourth CIC.
• 2014 — Hiatus under NDA-I: prolonged vacancy period drew judicial attention.
• 2015 — R.K. Mathur appointed; subsequent CICs in the 2016-2020 window.
• 2019 onwards — post-amendment tenure regime; several orders on short-notice tenure decisions.

The CIC's own portal at cic.gov.in has a case-number searcher. For RTI Wiki's curated entries:

• Top-ten landmark → 10 Landmark CIC Decisions
• Recent (2021–2026) → Landmark rulings
• Specific §8 clause → see Grounds for RTI rejection and the PIO framework pages
• Full blog coverage → Blog (year-by-year archive)

• 10 Landmark CIC Decisions That Transformed RTI
• Landmark rulings 2021–2026
• Bombay HC RTI rulings
• Madras HC RTI rulings
• Kerala HC RTI rulings
• Karnataka HC RTI rulings
• Calcutta HC RTI rulings
• Grounds for RTI rejection
• DPDP Rules 2025 amendment
• RTI: a decade of change
• Blog — all posts
• Important decisions index

• Central Information Commission — Annual Reports 2005-2024 (cic.gov.in).
• Right to Information Act, 2005 (as amended 2019, 2023).
• Supreme Court and High Court judgements as cited above.

Last reviewed: 24 April 2026.