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—important-decisions:start [2026/04/19 16:14] (current) – created - external edit 127.0.0.1
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 +====== Case law library — landmark decisions on the Right to Information Act, 2005 ======
 +
 +{{htmlmetatags>metatag-keywords=(important decisions start rti right to information india)
 +metatag-description=(A curated library of the most important judgments of the Supreme Court, the High Courts, and the Information Commissions on the working of the Right to...)}}
 +
 +
 +<WRAP center round didyouknow 95%>
 +**Did you know?** In **//CBSE v. Aditya Bandopadhyay//** (2011), the Supreme Court settled that **file notings** are disclosable under the RTI Act. A decade-long battle over a single word in Section 2(f) — ended in one paragraph.
 +</WRAP>
 +
 +<WRAP center round tip 95%>
 +**If your last RTI was rejected.** See [[why-rti-gets-rejected|Why RTI Applications Get Rejected in India — and How to Avoid It]]. Five reasons, the exact fix for each, and two case studies of rejected RTIs corrected on appeal.
 +</WRAP>
 +
 +//A curated library of the most important judgments of the Supreme Court, the High Courts, and the Information Commissions on the working of the Right to Information Act, 2005. Cases are grouped by the section of the Act they principally engage. Each entry shows court, year, citation, a one-line plain-English holding, and a status note on whether the case remains good law after the November 2025 amendment.//
 +
 +<WRAP center round info 95%>
 +**How this library is curated.** Entries meet at least one of three tests: (a) cited by the Supreme Court or a Full Bench as the governing authority on a clause of the Act, (b) changed the day-to-day working of a provision at the Public Information Officer or First Appellate Authority level, or (c) is a post-2019 or post-14-November-2025 decision whose reasoning must be read into current practice. Cases decided under the now-removed proviso to Section 8(1)(j) are flagged.
 +</WRAP>
 +
 +===== Constitutional foundations =====
 +
 +  * **State of U.P. v. Raj Narain**, (1975) 4 SCC 428. Supreme Court. The citizen's right to know about the affairs of the Government is implicit in the freedom of speech and expression under Article 19(1)(a). Foundational for the statutory right later codified in the 2005 Act.
 +  * **S.P. Gupta v. Union of India**, 1981 Supp SCC 87. Supreme Court. Right of the people to be informed about every public act. The "judges' transfer" case; the reasoning on transparency in government is foundational.
 +  * **People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) v. Union of India**, (2003) 4 SCC 399. Supreme Court. Voters' right to information on the criminal antecedents and assets of candidates. Judicial precursor to the transparency regime codified by the 2005 Act.
 +  * **K. S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India**, (2017) 10 SCC 1. Supreme Court (Nine-Judge Bench). Right to privacy is a fundamental right under Article 21 and Article 19. The four-limb proportionality test now governs every Section 8(1)(j) decision, especially after 14 November 2025.
 +
 +===== Section 2(f) — scope of "information" =====
 +
 +  * **[[important-decisions:cbse-and-anr-vs-aditya-bandopadhyay|Central Board of Secondary Education v. Aditya Bandopadhyay]]**, (2011) 8 SCC 497. Supreme Court. An evaluated examination answer sheet is "information" under Section 2(f). Public authority is not bound to create new records, but must disclose existing records. Leading authority on the scope of "information".
 +
 +===== Section 2(h) — "public authority" =====
 +
 +  * **[[important-decisions:thalappalam-coop-vs-state-of-kerala|Thalappalam Service Coop. Bank Ltd. v. State of Kerala]]**, (2013) 16 SCC 82. Supreme Court. A cooperative society is a "public authority" only if it satisfies one of the Section 2(h) tests: formed by Constitution / law / notification of the appropriate Government, or owned, controlled, or substantially financed by the appropriate Government.
 +  * **DAV College Trust v. Director of Public Instructions**, (2019) 9 SCC 185. Supreme Court. An NGO which is substantially financed by the appropriate Government is a public authority under Section 2(h)(d)(ii). The test of "substantial financing" is not mathematical; it looks at whether the body would not function but for the public grant.
 +  * **Subhash Chandra Agrawal v. Indian National Congress** (CIC Full Bench, 3 June 2013). Central Information Commission. Six national political parties declared public authorities under Section 2(h). Relevant for practitioners applying the Section 2(h) test to non-traditional bodies. (Order has been subject of later contest; still the Commission's stated position.)
 +
 +===== Section 4 — suo motu disclosure =====
 +
 +  * **Anjali Bhardwaj v. Union of India**, (2019) 10 SCC 1. Supreme Court. Directed the Union Government and State Governments to fill vacancies in the Information Commissions within a stipulated period. The Commission's effectiveness is a function of its composition. Practitioners use this order when the Commission is understaffed and pendency impedes disposal.
 +
 +===== Section 8(1)(a) — sovereignty, security, strategic, scientific, economic =====
 +
 +  * **Centre for Public Interest Litigation v. Union of India (CBI RTI carve-out)**, Delhi High Court (2024). Discussed the scope of Section 24 and the interaction with Section 8(1)(a). The intelligence and security agency carve-out is not a blanket bar on information relating to allegations of corruption or human rights violations.
 +
 +===== Section 8(1)(d) — commercial confidence =====
 +
 +  * **Reliance Industries v. Gujarat State PCB**, various. Supreme Court and High Courts. The "commercial confidence" test looks at harm to competitive position, not mere business origin of the record. Public authority must apply the severability test under Section 10.
 +  * **Delhi High Court on PhD theses** (December 2024). Section 8(1)(d) does not automatically shield an unpublished PhD thesis from disclosure where the public interest in academic integrity and verification of qualifications is engaged.
 +
 +===== Section 8(1)(e) — fiduciary relationship =====
 +
 +  * **Reserve Bank of India v. Jayantilal Mistry**, (2016) 3 SCC 525. Supreme Court. A regulator does not stand in a fiduciary relationship with the entities it regulates. Inspection reports, Action Taken Reports, and similar RBI records are disclosable subject to Section 8(2) balancing.
 +  * **[[important-decisions:icai-vs-shaunak-h-satya|Institute of Chartered Accountants of India v. Shaunak H. Satya]]**, (2011) 8 SCC 781. Supreme Court. An examining body does not stand in a fiduciary relationship with its examiners, moderators, or candidates. Post-evaluation examination records are disclosable.
 +
 +===== Section 8(1)(g) — endangerment =====
 +
 +  * **Bihar Public Service Commission v. Saiyed Hussain Abbas Rizwi**, (2012) 13 SCC 61. Supreme Court. The identity of individual examiners is protected on the ground that disclosure could endanger their safety, but information that enables evaluation of the fairness of the examination process is disclosable.
 +
 +===== Section 8(1)(h) — investigation =====
 +
 +  * **Bhagat Singh v. Chief Information Commissioner**, Delhi High Court, 3 December 2007. The Section 8(1)(h) exemption requires a public authority to demonstrate that disclosure would impede the process of investigation, prosecution, or apprehension. A bare assertion that an investigation is pending is not enough.
 +
 +===== Section 8(1)(j) — personal information =====
 +
 +//After 14 November 2025, Section 8(1)(j) has been substituted by Section 44(3) of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023. The public interest override that used to sit within clause (j) has been removed; it now operates through Section 8(2). See// [[blog:dpdp-rules-2025-amendment-to-rti-act|DPDP Rules, 2025]] //and// [[blog:pio-reply-section-8-1-j-after-dpdp-2025|PIO reply after DPDP Rules, 2025]].
 +
 +  * **[[important-decisions:court:girish-ramchandra-deshpande|Girish Ramchandra Deshpande v. Central Information Commissioner]]**, (2013) 1 SCC 212. Supreme Court. Service record, annual property returns, movable and immovable assets, memos and show-cause notices issued to a public servant are "personal information" under Section 8(1)(j). Leading authority on the term. Remains good law on the scope of "personal information"; the override portion must be read against the 14 November 2025 amendment.
 +  * **R. K. Jain v. Union of India**, (2013) 14 SCC 794. Supreme Court. Information relating to service career of a public servant, including promotions, transfers, and disciplinary actions, is personal information under Section 8(1)(j).
 +  * **Central Public Information Officer, Supreme Court of India v. Subhash Chandra Agarwal**, (2020) 5 SCC 481. Supreme Court (Constitution Bench). The Office of the Chief Justice of India is a public authority under Section 2(h). Judges' personal assets and declarations are amenable to the Section 8(1)(j) and Section 8(1)(e) tests, applied case by case with Section 8(2) balancing. The leading post-2019 authority synthesising fiduciary and personal-information jurisprudence.
 +  * **Madras High Court on public servants' assets** (2024). Section 8(1)(j) applied to assets of public servants; public interest in disclosure weighed on a case-by-case basis under Section 8(2).
 +
 +===== Section 8(2) — public interest override =====
 +
 +  * **CBSE v. Aditya Bandopadhyay** (cited above) and the **Jayantilal Mistry** line establish that Section 8(2) requires a balancing of the public interest in disclosure against the harm to protected interests. The override operates notwithstanding any clause of Section 8(1). After the 14 November 2025 amendment, Section 8(2) is the sole route for a public interest override in personal-information matters.
 +
 +===== Section 11 — third-party procedure =====
 +
 +  * **Arvind Kejriwal v. Central Public Information Officer**, Delhi High Court (2010). Section 11 requires the Public Information Officer to issue a notice to the third party within five days and take a decision within forty days. The third-party objection is not by itself a ground of refusal.
 +
 +===== Sections 18, 19 and 20 — complaint, appeal, penalty =====
 +
 +  * **Chief Information Commissioner v. State of Manipur**, (2011) 15 SCC 1. Supreme Court. Section 18 complaint and Section 19 appeal are distinct jurisdictions. Section 18 does not give the Commission an appellate power to direct disclosure; that lies under Section 19. A practitioner must pick the right route.
 +  * **[[important-decisions:cic-case-laws:shri-ketan-kantilal-modi-vs-central-board-of-excise-customs|Ketan Kantilal Modi v. Central Board of Excise & Customs]]** (CIC Full Bench, 2009). Scope of Section 6(1) "concerned public authority" and Section 6(3) transfer. One application cannot aggregate information held by many public authorities.
 +  * **[[important-decisions:cic-case-laws:shri-nihar-ranjan-banerjee-cvo-and-shri-bidya-nand-mishra-dgm-vig-coal-india-ltd-vs-shri-mn-ghosh|Nihar Ranjan Banerjee v. M. N. Ghosh]]** (CIC, 2009). The Commission has inherent power of review in cases of procedural infirmity or error apparent on the record.
 +
 +===== Section 2(h) — public authority, continued (Ministers, political functionaries) =====
 +
 +  * **[[important-decisions:cic-case-laws:ministers-under-rti|Ministers under the Right to Information Act]]** (Central Information Commission). The offices of Union and State Ministers are public authorities under Section 2(h). Each Ministerial office must appoint a Public Information Officer, a First Appellate Authority, and comply with Section 4 suo motu disclosure.
 +
 +===== Procedure and certified copies =====
 +
 +  * **[[important-decisions:cic-case-laws:format-rti-cpio|Format of reply by the Public Information Officer]]** (Department of Personnel and Training Office Memorandum No. 10/1/2013-IR dated 6 October 2015). The prescribed minimum content of every reply.
 +  * **[[important-decisions:cic-case-laws:advocates-rti|Appearance of an Advocate or non-Advocate before the Commission]]** (Punjab State Information Commission, Full Bench). A non-Advocate may appear on behalf of an information-seeker with the Commission's authorisation.
 +
 +===== Transparency in political and electoral matters =====
 +
 +  * **Association for Democratic Reforms v. Union of India (Electoral Bonds case)**, (2024) 5 SCC 1. Supreme Court (Constitution Bench). The Electoral Bond Scheme held unconstitutional in part; information on donors and recipients directed to be disclosed. The reasoning on the citizen's right to know about political funding extends the Article 19(1)(a) line from Raj Narain and PUCL.
 +
 +===== Namespace listing =====
 +
 +{{indexmenu>:important-decisions#3}}
 +
 +
 +
 +<WRAP center round help 95%>
 +**New to RTI? File your first application in ten minutes.** See [[file-rti-online-india|How to File RTI Online in India — 2026 Step-by-Step Guide]] with a ready-to-use English and Hindi template, the Rs 10 online fee flow, and the appeal path.
 +</WRAP>
 +
 +===== Related =====
 +
 +  * [[:act|The Right to Information Act, 2005 — current text]]. With amendment overlays at every amended section.
 +  * [[decoded:start|Decoded]]. Plain-language walkthrough of each section of the Act.
 +  * [[explanations|Explanations]]. Concept-wise notes on the terms and provisions of the Act.
 +  * [[blog:pio-reply-section-8-1-j-after-dpdp-2025|PIO reply after DPDP Rules, 2025]]. The post-14-November-2025 drafting note.
 +
 +===== Sources =====
 +
 +  - The Right to Information Act, 2005 (No. 22 of 2005).
 +  - The Right to Information (Amendment) Act, 2019 (No. 24 of 2019).
 +  - The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (No. 22 of 2023), Section 44(3).
 +  - The Digital Personal Data Protection Rules, 2025, notified on 14 November 2025.
 +  - Citations to Supreme Court, High Court, and Information Commission decisions as given against each entry.
 +
 +===== Last reviewed on =====
 +
 +19 April 2026
 +
 +{{tag>rti case-law supreme-court high-court cic commission-orders landmarks}}
  
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