Section 10 — Severability — PIO framework

Part of the PIO / FAA Knowledge Base.

Where a request for access to information is rejected on the ground that it is in relation to information which is exempt from disclosure, then access may be provided to that part of the record which does not contain any information which is exempt from disclosure and which can reasonably be severed from any part that contains exempt information.

Two things to notice. “May be provided” — the Information Commissions have consistently read this as a duty wherever severance is reasonable, not a courtesy. “Can reasonably be severed” — the test is practical: if the exempt and open parts can be separated without destroying the meaning, they must be.

A blanket refusal of an entire document — when only a portion is exempt — is itself a §10 violation. The PIO must sever exempt content and release the rest, with the redaction reasoning recorded in writing. Typical severable situations:

• A tender file where one bidder's commercial secrets are §8(1)(d) — the evaluation criteria, technical scores, and the L1 conclusion are severable and disclosable.
• An RBI inspection report where third-party details are exempt — in RBI v. Jayantilal Mistry (Supreme Court, 16 December 2015) the Court directed disclosure of inspection reports and defaulter lists with exempt portions severed under §10, not refusal of the whole report.
• A personnel file where one page (medical, or a third party's confidential reference) is exempt — the appointment, seniority and appraisal records of the employee concerned are severable.
• An answer-key/OMR record where a co-candidate's personal data is masked — the keys, the candidate's own sheet and the marking scheme are severable.

Do not just cite §10 — make severance the only sensible outcome by how you phrase the request:

• Ask for the record “or such parts thereof as are not exempt, severed under Section 10 of the RTI Act”.
• Name the severable units you want: “the evaluation summary and comparative statement, with financial details of bidders other than the L1 redacted”.
• If refused wholesale, the first-appeal ground writes itself: the PIO has not recorded why the entire document, page by page, attracts an exemption, nor why the requested portions cannot reasonably be severed under Section 10; the refusal is therefore non-speaking and contrary to Section 10.
• Pair it with the speaking-reasons rule — refusals must be reasoned (long-settled since Bhagat Singh v. CIC, Delhi HC 2007) — so “exempt in full” without page-wise reasoning fails twice.

• Default to severance. Redact the exempt item — the specific name, line, or paragraph — and release the rest.
• Record the redaction reasoning in the order itself: which exemption, which portion, why severance of that portion was not reasonable (if any).
• Mark redactions visibly (blanked or struck lines with “redacted u/s 8(1)(x)”) so the applicant sees what was withheld, not just shorter pages.
• Certify the severed copy as a true extract of the record — it is still “information provided under the Act”.
• Where the whole genuinely cannot be severed (the exempt content IS the record — e.g., a purely personal file with no public element), say exactly that in the order; that is the only whole-document refusal §10 lets stand.

• Reserve Bank of India v. Jayantilal N. Mistry (Supreme Court, 16 December 2015) — the operational charter for §10: fiduciary narrowed, inspection reports and defaulter lists disclosed with exempt portions severed, not withheld wholesale.
• Namit Sharma v. Union of India (Supreme Court, 2012) — exemptions are exceptions to a fundamental right and must be narrowly construed; §10 is the mechanism that keeps the exception narrow in practice.

Yes — a refusal of 37 pages needs page-wise, reason-wise reasoning. Ask in first appeal for the exemption and severance analysis for each withheld page; “the remaining pages are exempt” is non-speaking.

No. Volume is not a listed ground. At most, further-fee provisions apply for the copies actually supplied.

To every exemption that is content-based (8(1)(d), (e), (j)…). Grounds that attach to the request itself — §8(1)(a) in genuine national-security cases, or information barred by court order — can defeat the whole record; but the PIO must say which part of the ground does the work.

Ask for the redaction log — which exemption covers each redaction. If that is refused, the first appeal shows a PIO refusing to reason, which is the weakest position to defend.

• Full treatment on the Grounds for RTI rejection page
• PIO RTI Reply Guide — how to write a reasoned reply that passes First Appeal review.
• Banking & Insurance RTI — Mistry applied to inspection reports in practice.
• PIO / FAA Knowledge Base — the hub.

• §10 of the Act
• All 10 grounds for RTI rejection
• FAA appellate-review checklist
• First Appeal timelines
• PIO RTI Reply Guide
• Why RTI gets rejected
• The RTI Playbook book

• Right to Information Act, 2005 — §10, with §8(1)(d)/(e)/(j), §19.
• Reserve Bank of India v. Jayantilal N. Mistry, Supreme Court, 16 December 2015.
• Namit Sharma v. Union of India, Supreme Court, 2012 — in our case-law database.
• Bhagat Singh v. CIC, Delhi High Court, 2007 — speaking reasons.

Last reviewed: 27 August 2026. Statutory text re-checked against the Act; Mistry severance holding re-verified this run; the old page's GMC Thiruvananthapuram citation could not be verified against any primary source and has been removed.