Your armed-forces pension and service records under RTI — the verified law

Section 24 of the RTI Act exempts only the intelligence and security organisations listed in the Second Schedule — bodies such as the Intelligence Bureau, R&AW, BSF, CRPF, NSG and Assam Rifles, with additions over the years by gazette notification. The Army, Navy and Air Force are not in that Schedule. A serving member, a veteran or a family pensioner can file RTI applications with the Ministry of Defence, the Department of Ex-Servicemen Welfare, the service headquarters, the record offices and the Defence Accounts Department — all of which designate CPIOs (the DESW publishes its PIO list at desw.gov.in/rti).

Even for the organisations that are in the Second Schedule, the provisos to Section 24(1) keep two doors open: information about allegations of corruption is never excluded, and information about allegations of human-rights violations must be given with the Information Commission's prior approval. For where RTI genuinely does not apply, see Section 24: where you cannot apply RTI.

Section 8(1)(j) exempts “personal information” whose disclosure has no relationship to public activity or would cause unwarranted invasion of privacy. PIOs sometimes stamp this on a veteran's request for his own pension file. The distinction that decides these cases:

• Your own pension and service records — Section 8(1)(j) exists to protect the person the information is about. When the applicant is that person, there is no third party whose privacy could be invaded. The Supreme Court's service-law line — Dev Dutt v. Union of India (2008) 8 SCC 725 and the three-judge affirmation in Sukhdev Singh v. Union of India (2013) 9 SCC 566 — treats an officer's own record entries as something that must be shown to the officer, not hidden from him. Read with that line, a refusal of your own pension fixation papers or service-record extracts on 8(1)(j) grounds does not survive a first appeal.
• Someone else's pension or service records — the Supreme Court in Girish Ramchandra Deshpande v. CIC (2013) 1 SCC 212 held that a public servant's service record is personal information, exempt unless a larger public interest is shown. The CIC applies the same rule to defence pensions: in Girish Chandra v. Ministry of Defence, File No. CIC/LS/C/2012/000334, decided 24 August 2012, it upheld the denial of another retired employee's pension details as Section 8(1)(j) personal information (read the decision).

Address your RTI to the office that holds the record, or it will spend weeks in Section 6(3) transfers:

• Your record office (for JCOs/OR: the Records of your Regiment or Corps; for officers: the respective service headquarters) — service record, discharge documents, service verification.
• PCDA (Pensions), Prayagraj and the Defence Accounts Department — pension sanction, corrigendum PPOs, arrears calculation sheets.
• SPARSH (sparsh.defencepension.gov.in) — the Ministry of Defence's pension administration portal. If your pension has migrated to SPARSH, your PPO and pension statements are downloadable from your login, and its grievance module handles routine service requests. Try this before RTI for plain copies — it is faster.

RTI becomes the right tool when SPARSH or the record office does not respond, when you need certified copies for a tribunal, or when you need the file notings behind a decision — why a claim was rejected, when your case moved between offices, and who sat on it.

Send it to the CPIO of the record-holding office with the ₹10 central fee. Ask for records, not explanations:

Under Section 6(1) of the RTI Act, 2005, I request the following
information relating to me (I am the subject of these records):

1. Certified copy of my pension fixation/sanction file, including
   the PPO and every corrigendum PPO issued in my case, as per
   Section 2(j)(ii).
2. Certified copies of my Last Pay Certificate and the data sheet
   or LPC-cum-data sheet forwarded to PCDA (Pensions) in my case.
3. Certified extract of my service and pay verification records
   held by the record office.
4. The daily progress of the file dealing with my pension claim
   dated [date], including dates of receipt and forwarding between
   offices, and the present custodian of the file.

A reply is due within 30 days under Section 7(1). Since these are
my own records, the exemption under Section 8(1)(j) does not apply
against me. If any part is withheld, please cite the exact
provision and inform me of my right to first appeal under
Section 19(1).

You can generate a clean version with the AI RTI Drafter.

A common and costly confusion, and exactly what the fabricated summary this page used to carry got wrong:

• RTI gets you the information. The chain is CPIO → first appeal to the departmental appellate authority under Section 19(1) → second appeal to the Central Information Commission under Section 19(3). The Armed Forces Tribunal is not part of the RTI appeal chain — do not file an RTI second appeal before the AFT. See how to file a CIC second appeal.
• The AFT decides the grievance. If the real problem is a wrong pension fixation, a denied disability element, or arrears, the remedy is an Original Application before the Armed Forces Tribunal — Section 14 of the AFT Act, 2007 gives it original jurisdiction over “service matters”, which Section 3(o) expressly defines to include pension and other retirement benefits.
• Run them in parallel. Use RTI to extract the documents and file notings; use the OA to attack the decision itself, with the RTI output as your evidence.

1. Read the refusal against the law. A bare “8(1)(j) — personal information” against your own record is a weak order. Run it through the PIO Reply Checker.
2. File a first appeal within 30 days under Section 19(1) using the First Appeal Builder. Point out that 8(1)(j) protects the data subject — you — from third parties, and cite the Dev Dutt and Sukhdev Singh line on your right to see your own record.
3. Track the clock with the Timeline Tracker; 30 days of silence is a deemed refusal.
4. Second appeal to the CIC under Section 19(3) if the appellate authority also refuses.

For the full escalation playbook, see The RTI Playbook and the PIO RTI Reply Guide.

No. Section 24 exempts only the intelligence and security organisations notified in the Second Schedule — the three services are not in it. The Ministry of Defence, service headquarters, record offices and PCDA (Pensions) all have CPIOs and answer RTI applications on the ordinary 30-day timeline.

Not sustainably. Section 8(1)(j) protects personal information from third parties. When you seek your own pension fixation papers, PPO or service verification, you are the person whose privacy the clause protects — there is no one else's privacy to invade. Such refusals are routinely reversible in first appeal.

Generally no. Girish Ramchandra Deshpande (2013) 1 SCC 212 holds that a public servant's service record is exempt personal information unless a larger public interest is shown, and the CIC applied exactly this to defence pensions in Girish Chandra v. Ministry of Defence (2012), refusing another retiree's pension details.

No — the AFT does not hear RTI appeals. RTI denials go to the departmental first appellate authority and then to the Central Information Commission. The AFT is where you challenge the pension decision itself (fixation, disability element, arrears) by Original Application under the AFT Act, 2007.

Often not. If your pension is on SPARSH, your PPO and pension statements are available from your SPARSH login, and record offices reply to ordinary requests too. RTI is the tool when those routes stall, when you need certified copies as evidence, or when you need the file notings behind an adverse decision.

• Dev Dutt v. Union of India, (2008) 8 SCC 725 — indiankanoon.org/doc/801705
• Sukhdev Singh v. Union of India, (2013) 9 SCC 566 — indiankanoon.org/doc/9665019
• Girish Ramchandra Deshpande v. CIC, (2013) 1 SCC 212 — indiankanoon.org/doc/160205361
• Girish Chandra v. Ministry of Defence, CIC/LS/C/2012/000334, 24 August 2012 — indiankanoon.org/doc/125368476
• Armed Forces Tribunal Act, 2007, ss.3(o) and 14 — indiacode.nic.in
• The Right to Information Act, 2005 — ss.2(f), 6(1), 7(1), 8(1)(j), 19, 24, Second Schedule
• SPARSH — sparsh.defencepension.gov.in · DESW PIO list — desw.gov.in/rti

• Defence pension sanction records — CIC (CIC 2020)
• Armed-forces service records — Delhi HC (HC-DEL 2017)
• CAT Principal Bench on service-record RTI — 2024 (CAT 2024)
• Pension records — Kerala HC (HC-KER 2018)
• IB and §24 scope — SC (SC 2018)
• Section 24: where you cannot apply RTI
• Full case-law search
• Case-Law Database — overview
• PIO RTI Reply Guide
• The RTI Act, 2005 — annotated

Editorial summary · reviewed by Dr. Shrawan Kumar Pathak · last reviewed 10 July 2026.