Landmark RTI cases: the rulings that built the Act

Courts spent three decades building the right to know before Parliament wrote it into the 2005 statute, and the two decades since have been a running argument about what the words mean. A citizen who knows the eleven rulings below knows most of what a PIO knows.

Raj Narain v. Indira Gandhi — Supreme Court, 7 November 1975. An election petitioner wanted the Prime Minister's security files to prove corrupt practice. The Court held that the right to know is part of the freedom of speech and expression under Article 19(1)(a). This is the seed the RTI Act grew from; it is why disclosure is the rule and secrecy the exception.

Khanapuram Gandaiah v. Administrative Officer — Supreme Court, 4 January 2010 (SLP (C) 34868 of 2009). The Court held that the Act gives access to information that exists in records — a PIO is not obliged to create information, or to answer interpretive or hypothetical questions. Draft your application around documents — registers, notings, orders — and this ruling works for you, not against you.

CBSE v. Aditya Bandopadhyay — Supreme Court, 9 August 2011. Answer books are disclosable to the student who wrote them, after evaluation, subject to the Act's exemptions. The Court also cautioned against RTI being used as an instrument of obstruction. This is the case to cite when a board or university refuses a copy of an evaluated answer sheet.

Thalappalam Service Co-operative Bank v. State of Kerala — Supreme Court, 7 October 2013. On whether co-operative societies are public authorities, the Court read “substantially financed” in section 2(h) narrowly: mere regulatory control, loans at market rates, or revenue-linked levies do not make a body a public authority. If your target body is only licensed or regulated by government, this case is the wall you will hit.

Political parties as public authorities — Central Information Commission, full bench, 3 June 2013. In complaints by Subhash Chandra Agarwal and Anil Bairwal of the Association for Democratic Reforms, the Commission held six national parties to be public authorities under the Act. The parties have not complied; the orders stand on paper, but the practical route to party records runs through the Election Commission, which is a public authority. Keep expectations realistic here.

Girish Ramchandra Deshpande v. Central Information Commissioner — Supreme Court, 3 October 2012. Service records of a public servant — assets, promotions, disciplinary files — are personal information under section 8(1)(j), disclosable only where the public interest in disclosure outweighs the harm to privacy. The applicant must show that larger interest; a wish to know is not one.

R.K. Jain v. Union of India — Supreme Court, 16 April 2013. Applying the same section 8(1)(j) line, the Court protected personal information about a named public servant — a member of a tribunal — absent demonstrated public interest. A reason to anchor requests for an individual's records in a concrete public interest you can state.

Reserve Bank of India v. Jayantilal N. Mistry — Supreme Court, 16 December 2015. The RBI's defence that its supervisory information about banks was held in a fiduciary relationship was rejected; the Court directed disclosure of inspection-related material. The fiduciary excuse has never recovered. Cite this when any regulator claims it is holding your file “in trust” for someone else.

Bhagat Singh v. Chief Information Commissioner — Delhi High Court, 3 December 2007 (W.P. 3114 of 2007). Section 8(1)(h) — investigation and prosecution — protects information only while disclosure would genuinely impede the process; a blanket refusal does not pass, and the authority must show the impediment, not assert it.

CPIO, Supreme Court v. Subhash Chandra Agarwal — Constitution Bench, 13 November 2019. The office of the Chief Justice of India is a public authority; its information falls under the Act, with the Registrar as the competent authority. Short of a constitutional amendment, nothing in the Republic's structure is outside RTI by definition.

Association for Democratic Reforms v. Union of India — Supreme Court, 15 February 2024. The electoral bonds scheme was struck down as unconstitutional for violating voters' right to information about political funding, and disclosure of the bond data was ordered. Not an RTI case on its face — but the strongest recent statement that funding secrecy cannot survive a right-to-information challenge.

Dr. Shrawan Kumar Pathak's daughter was told no copy of her evaluated answer book could be given. His first appeal quoted the precise sentence of the CBSE v. Aditya Bandopadhyay holding — evaluated answer books are disclosable to the examinee — with the date and court, and asked the FAA to either disclose or record which exemption clause the board was invoking. The answer book arrived by registered post within three weeks, before any hearing. A citation used exactly is worth ten used loudly.

• Name the court, the date, and the holding you rely on — one sentence each. Commissions read holdings, not verdicts-by-volume.
• Never overstate: Deshpande and R.K. Jain cut against applicants as often as RBI v. Mistry cuts for them. Cite the case that fits, or the FAA will cite the one that does not.
• For full texts, search the case name on Indian Kanoon; the citing case law guide shows how to quote a holding in an appeal.

No. The Act's sections are enough for most applications. Cases earn their keep at the appeal stage, when a refusal cites an exemption and you must show it was read too widely.

No — and be wary of anyone who says so. The privacy exemption is real law; what Deshpande and the 2017 Puttaswamy judgment require is a stated public interest that outweighs it.

Only on paper — the national parties named in the 3 June 2013 orders have not implemented them. Election Commission records remain the practical disclosure route.

• Supreme Court rulings for PIOs and applicants
• High Court rulings for PIOs and applicants
• How to cite case law in an RTI appeal
• Electoral bonds case study
• RTI myths — what the Act does not say
• The RTI Playbook book — drafting, appeals and deadlines in one place.

Last reviewed: 26 August 2026.