What is RTI Wiki

RTI Wiki exists so that any Indian citizen can file an RTI application — or a first appeal, or a second appeal — without paying a service fee to an intermediary and without guessing at the rules. The site publishes guides on the Act's sections, state-by-state fee and procedure pages, drafting templates, case-law summaries, and free tools that generate applications and appeals. Articles link to related pages so a reader can move from a summary to the underlying statute, rule or judgment without leaving the site.

The project is produced by a small independent editorial team, led by editor Dr. Shrawan Kumar Pathak, as an editorial project of Big Helpers. Content is curated and reviewed by the team — it is not an openly editable, community-edited wiki, and it is not affiliated with any government body. Where a page helps you use a government portal, it says so, and it links to the official site for the transaction itself.

• Sourced. Factual claims — fees, rule numbers, helplines, deadlines, addresses — are verified against primary sources: the statute, the rules, the gazette notification, the commission's own website. Where a figure could not be verified, it is removed rather than left to stand
• Reviewed. Pages on evolving law are reviewed after any amendment or binding judgment, and carry a Last reviewed date on the page
• Corrected openly. Found an error? File a correction request; material corrections are logged on the affected page
• Licensed for reuse. Content is published under CC-BY 4.0 unless otherwise marked — reuse it with attribution

The editorial standards behind those habits are set out on the editorial policy page, and the sourcing method on the methodology and sourcing page.

Does:

• Explain the Act in plain language — sections, timelines, exemptions, penalties
• Map state procedure: fees, payment modes, commissions, portals — each verified against that state's own material
• Give copy-and-file templates for applications and appeals
• Summarise judgments that change how the Act works in practice
• Run free tools: the RTI drafter, fee and timeline calculators, the first-appeal builder

Does not:

• File RTIs on your behalf, or charge any fee for anything
• Edit or update government records — the transaction always happens on the official portal or at the office
• Give legal advice for your specific case — the pages are reference material, not counsel
• Accept payment for placement or favourable coverage — there is nothing to buy

The tool suite is the practical half of the site: an AI RTI drafter that turns your problem into a Section 6(1) application with the right PIO addressing; a fee calculator carrying the verified state schedules; a timeline calculator for reply and appeal deadlines; a first-appeal builder; and a Section 8 classifier for exemption questions. All free, no login, no tracking of your matter.

The short answer is the citizen with a stuck file. The reader who arrives most often has already complained — to an office, a portal, a helpline — and has an acknowledgement and nothing else. For that reader, every page is built the same way: the answer in the first screen, the exact route in numbered steps, the template to copy, and the escalation with its dates. Students chasing exam records, bank customers chasing rejections, homeowners chasing municipal files, pensioners chasing disbursal — the facts differ, the discipline is the same.

The second audience is the person who must act on RTI replies: the advocate assembling a paper trail, the journalist checking a claim, the officer drafting a reply that will survive an appeal. For them, the case-law summaries and the rule texts carry their citations, so the underlying judgment or notification can be pulled and read whole.

Independence here has a working meaning: no government department funds or approves these pages, and no commercial intermediary shapes them. The fee pages state what the rules say — including where a state's portal is down or a rule is hostile to citizens. Where this site corrects its own past errors, the correction note says so on the page.

• Editorial policy
• Methodology and sourcing
• RTI — 25 questions answered
• RTI fees by state — the verified index
• The RTI Playbook book

Last reviewed: 26 August 2026.