A well-drafted RTI is specific, short, and cites the clause that compels disclosure. Drafting that is a skill. Most citizens do not have it. An AI that has read the Act and thousands of sample applications can produce a competent draft in seconds. But an AI will also cheerfully invent Section 7(7) (there is no such clause), cite Ramesh Kumar v. Union of India (2015) (no such case), or phrase the request as “why” when it should be “what document”.

The difference between a rejected RTI and a reply within 30 days is often four sentences. This guide teaches you to get those four sentences from an AI and verify them in under five minutes.

Every AI-drafted RTI still operates under the Indian Act. The LLM has no special standing. Your application is governed by:

• Section 6 — right to file a request, no form prescribed, no reason required.
• Section 7 — 30-day reply window; 48 hours for life and liberty.
• Section 8 — exemptions the PIO can invoke.
• Section 10 — severability. The non-exempt portion must be disclosed.
• Section 20 — Rs 25,000 penalty on the PIO for wilful refusal.
• DPDP Act, 2023, Section 44(3) — substituted Section 8(1)(j) on 14 November 2025. AI models trained before that date will not know the new language. Always check the DPDP banner on every RTI Wiki page.

Paste any of these into Claude, ChatGPT, or Perplexity. Replace the bracketed inputs.

You are an RTI practitioner with 20 years of experience in India.
Draft an RTI application for the following facts:
[WHAT YOU WANT + WHO HOLDS IT + TIME PERIOD]

Requirements:
1. Cite the Right to Information Act, 2005, Section 6.
2. One numbered request per paragraph. Five requests maximum.
3. Each request is for a SPECIFIC DOCUMENT, not an opinion.
4. Include exact date ranges, file numbers, names where known.
5. Add a severance clause: "If any part is exempt under Section 8,
   please sever under Section 10 and disclose the rest."
6. Add a transfer clause: "If the matter lies outside your office,
   kindly transfer under Section 6(3) and intimate me."
7. Output in plain English. No legalese, no semicolons, no em dashes.

Rewrite this RTI so that it asks for the FILE NOTING and
INTER-DEPARTMENTAL CORRESPONDENCES that explain the decision,
instead of asking the officer "why".

Original: [PASTE YOUR DRAFT]

Suggest five specific exemption clauses the PIO may invoke to
refuse my RTI below. For each, draft a counter-paragraph I can
include pre-emptively in my RTI, citing one Supreme Court or CIC
decision that narrows the exemption.

Original: [PASTE YOUR DRAFT]

My RTI names an individual public servant. Rewrite my request so it
anchors the information in public activity and public duty, to defeat
a Section 8(1)(j) privacy refusal post-DPDP 2025. Use the proportionality
test from K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India (2017).

Original: [PASTE YOUR DRAFT]

List the fee, mode of payment, and delivery route for filing an
RTI with the following public authority: [NAME].
Include: fee amount, IPO payee line, address, online portal if available,
timelines, and first appellate authority with email.

Add a paragraph to my RTI that invokes my right to INSPECT records
under Section 2(j)(i). State that the first hour is free and that I
will identify documents for certified copies during inspection at
Rs 2 per page under Rule 4(a).

My RTI concerns a medical emergency, death certificate, or other
life-and-liberty matter. Rewrite the RTI so the 48-hour proviso to
Section 7(1) is clearly triggered, with facts that justify it.

1. Gather facts in one paragraph: what you want, who holds it, time period, file number if known.
2. Feed facts to AI using Prompt 1 above.
3. Verify every citation against our Act page and Indian Kanoon.
4. Shorten to no more than five numbered requests. Delete filler.
5. Cross-check against our 6 Reasons RTIs Get Rejected: any “why” words? any “relevant” weasel words? any missing dates?
6. Add the severance and transfer paragraphs (Prompt 1 covers these).
7. Submit via rtionline.gov.in for Central, or your State portal for State, or Speed Post with Rs 10 IPO.
8. Save your draft, the PIO's reply, and your appeals in a single folder. You will need them again.

After AI produces the draft, paste the ENTIRE draft back into a fresh AI session with this prompt:

You are the Public Information Officer receiving this RTI. List
every possible ground under Section 8 or Section 9 on which you
could reject this request, and the exact phrasing you would use
in a refusal. Be ruthless.

RTI: [PASTE YOUR DRAFT]

The AI will expose the soft spots. Patch each one in the original. This “adversarial review” adds about five minutes to your drafting time and catches problems the original AI missed.

Yes. The RTI Act is form-agnostic. The Act requires the application to be in writing or electronic form, to specify the information sought, and to pay the fee. It does not care whether a human or an AI wrote the first draft.

No. The source of the drafting is your private matter. You sign, you pay, you are the applicant.

No. An LLM runs in the cloud and the PIO never sees your prompt history. However, check your AI provider's data policy before pasting sensitive facts.

Yes. Use Prompt 1 with the task changed to “First appeal under Section 19(1)”. Also see our First Appeal template.

All four leading models (Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity) produce competent drafts for typical Central Government RTIs. For state matters and vernacular-language queries, Perplexity's search grounding and Claude's long-context understanding perform best in our tests. All four hallucinate citations. Always verify.

Pick Prompt 1 above, paste in your facts, and run it. Then verify every citation against The RTI Act, 2005 on this site. If you want a clean template to start from, open the First RTI format and let the AI fill in the specifics. For state-by-state online routes, see our upcoming State RTI Portals Directory.

• The Right to Information Act, 2005 (as amended)
• First RTI Template (Copy-Paste)
• First Appeal Template
• RTI vs Complaint: When to Use RTI
• Top 20 RTI Questions to Ask
• Why RTI Gets Rejected (and Fixes)
• State RTI Portals Directory (2026)
• Tracking Your RTI Appeal via AI
• PIO Reply after DPDP 2025

1. Right to Information Act, 2005. Sections 6, 7, 8, 10, 20.
2. Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, Section 44(3).
3. K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) v. Union of India, (2017) 10 SCC 1.
4. CBSE and Anr. v. Aditya Bandopadhyay, (2011) 8 SCC 497.
5. Girish Ramchandra Deshpande v. CIC, (2013) 1 SCC 212.
6. Indian Kanoon, indiankanoon.org (citation verification).
7. Department of Personnel and Training, Guide on the RTI Act, 2005 (2013).

Last reviewed on: 20 April 2026