Khanapuram Gandaiah v. Administrative Officer

Judicial reasoning is not 'information'; a PIO cannot be compelled to explain a judge's thought process.

The petitioner, a party to civil litigation over land, filed an RTI application asking why the judicial officers concerned had passed certain orders against him. The application, both appeals, and a writ petition before the Andhra Pradesh High Court all failed. The Supreme Court dismissed the Special Leave Petition, holding that the reasons or thought process of a judge in arriving at a decision are NOT 'information' under §2(f); an applicant is entitled only to the material on record. It added that “As the petitioner has misused the provisions of the RTI Act, the High Court had rightly dismissed the writ petition.”

Under §2(f) read with §6, a public authority must supply only information that already exists and is accessible to it: “an applicant under Section 6 of the RTI Act can get any information which is already in existence and accessible to the public authority under law. Of course, under the RTI Act an applicant is entitled to get copy of the opinions, advices, circulars, orders, etc., but he cannot ask for any information as to why such opinions, advices, circulars, orders, etc. have been passed, especially in matters pertaining to judicial decisions.” As the Court put it: “A judge speaks through his judgments or orders passed by him… No litigant can be allowed to seek information as to why and for what reasons the judge had come to a particular decision.” A judge is not bound to explain later on for what reasons he had come to such a conclusion; a PIO cannot be asked to furnish those reasons under the RTI Act. The Court also grounded the result in what the officer actually holds: “the Public Information Officer is not supposed to have any material which is not before him; or any information he could have obtained under law.”

judicial officer, reasoning, §2(f), information definition

• Namit Sharma v. Union of India (SC 2012)
• Judicial Academies under RTI — CIC (CIC 2020)
• Own APAR and service-book access (SC 2022)
• Union of India v. R. Jayachandran (SC 2017)
• Natural justice in Information Commission hearings (SC 2020)

• Full judgment text on Indian Kanoon
• All Supreme Court of India rulings in the corpus
• All RTI cases turning on §2
• All landmark rulings
• 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.

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