RTI reply incomplete or false? How to prove it

Decide the forum before you decide the wording. If what you want is the record, your route is a first appeal under section 19 of the Right to Information Act, 2005, then a second appeal to the Information Commission. A complaint under section 18 aims at the officer's conduct. It can end in a penalty, but the Supreme Court has held it cannot end in an order handing you the file. Take the wrong door and you come back to the appeal ladder with your limitation dates already spent.

Section 18(1)(e) lets the Commission inquire into a complaint from a person “who believes that he or she has been given incomplete, misleading or false information under this Act”. That wording is why the trap is easy to fall into: your grievance really is a section 18 ground.

But in Chief Information Commr. and Anr vs State Of Manipur and Anr, decided on 12 December 2011, the Supreme Court held that a Commissioner “while entertaining a complaint under Section 18 of the said Act has no jurisdiction to pass an order providing for access to the information”, and that “Sections 18 and 19 of the Act serve two different purposes and lay down two different procedures and they provide two different remedies. One cannot be a substitute for the other.”

The delivery power sits on the appeal side. In an appeal, section 19(8) lets the Commission secure compliance “by providing access to information, if so requested, in a particular form” and “impose any of the penalties provided under this Act”.

Now read the first line of section 20(1). Penalty arises where the Commission, “at the time of deciding any complaint or appeal”, finds the officer has “knowingly given incorrect, incomplete or misleading information”. Complaint or appeal. So the appeal route can produce both the record and the penalty. The complaint route, on Manipur, does not produce the record.

Appeal under section 19(1) within 30 days of the reply, then second appeal under section 19(3) “within ninety days from the date on which the decision should have been made or was actually received”. Keep section 18 for when conduct itself is the point. Nothing in either section stops the appeal clock while a complaint is pending, so a complaint filed instead of an appeal can leave you relying on the proviso to section 19(1), which admits a late appeal only where the appellant “was prevented by sufficient cause from filing the appeal in time”.

Most people argue as if they must prove the reply false. The Act says otherwise, twice.

• Section 19(5). “In any appeal proceedings, the onus to prove that a denial of a request was justified shall be on the Central Public Information Officer or State Public Information Officer, as the case may be, who denied the request.”
• Second proviso to section 20(1). “Provided further that the burden of proving that he acted reasonably and diligently shall be on the Central Public Information Officer or the State Public Information Officer, as the case may be.”

Section 19(5) is worded around a denial, so the drafting move matters. Do not plead that the reply was wrong. Number the queries in your original application, state which numbered limb went unanswered, and plead that limb as denied. Once a limb is on record as denied, the officer must justify it.

Section 7(1) helps you get there. It allows only two lawful outcomes in 30 days: provide the information, or “reject the request for any of the reasons specified in sections 8 and 9”. So a reply that withholds without naming section 8 or section 9 is not a lawful rejection at all.

You do not prove a public authority wrong by insisting. You prove it by producing two documents from that same authority which cannot both be true. Four methods.

1. Ask the same fact of two custodians. Ask the works branch for the date on the completion certificate. Separately ask accounts for the date and amount of the final bill. Two branches rarely coordinate a story.

2. Ask for the noting sheet, not the conclusion. Section 2(f) defines information to include “records, documents, memos, e-mails, opinions, advices, press releases, circulars, orders, logbooks, contracts, reports, papers”. A typed paragraph has no author. A file noting carries initials and dates.

3. Ask for the dispatch register page for the letter they say they sent. If the reply claims a notice was issued on a date, that day's entry either exists or does not. The assertion becomes checkable.

4. Compare the reply against what they published themselves. Section 4(1)(b) requires every public authority to publish its functions, its decision making procedure, “the norms set by it for the discharge of its functions”, and a directory of officers with their monthly remuneration. A reply that contradicts that mandatory disclosure is a contradiction you did not have to file for.

Evasion usually begins with your question, so anchor every query to a named record. Not “why was my pension delayed”, but “the date of receipt of my pension file as recorded in the inward register, and every movement on the file movement slip”. Section 7(9) says information “shall ordinarily be provided in the form in which it is sought”, so a paraphrase where you asked for a copy is itself a ground of appeal. Test the reply with the PIO Reply Checker.

These phrases look interchangeable. The difference decides your next application.

• “Information is not available.” About retrieval, not existence. Ask next for the file index and retention schedule kept under section 4(1)(a), which obliges an authority to “maintain all its records duly catalogued and indexed”.
• “No such record exists.” An assertion of fact about their holdings, not a rejection under section 8 or 9. Ask for it again in a signed reply naming the officer who checked.
• “The file is not traceable.” This concedes the record existed. Ask what action was taken on the loss.
• A genuine denial names a clause of section 8(1) or section 9, gives reasons, and supplies the appeal particulars. Only this is a lawful refusal, and section 19(5) still makes the officer defend it.

Against all four, inspection is the underused cure. Section 2(j)(i) includes “inspection of work, documents, records” within the right to information, and 2(j)(ii) covers “taking notes, extracts or certified copies”. Nobody can hand you a selective summary of a file you are reading. Say you seek inspection under section 2(j)(i) and will mark pages for certified copies. The inspection fee is prescribed by rules made by the appropriate government, so check your state rules.

Meera asks a municipal body for the date on a drain's completion certificate and its final cost.

• The reply of 12 March 2026 says work finished on 30 January 2026 at ₹4.10 lakh. No section 8 or 9 is cited, no document annexed.
• Her second application, to accounts, is answered on 18 March 2026. The final bill was passed on 6 January 2026 for ₹4.72 lakh.
• The two replies disagree by 24 days and ₹62,000. Both cannot be true.
• Section 19(1) runs 30 days from the date she received the 12 March reply, so her first appeal is due by 11 April 2026. She annexes both replies and pleads limbs 1 and 2 as denied.
• Section 20(1) fixes penalty at “two hundred and fifty rupees each day”, capped so the total “shall not exceed twenty-five thousand rupees”. At ₹250 a day, the cap arrives on day 100.

Fix your dates with the RTI Timeline Tracker, then draft with the First Appeal Builder.

Yes. Section 20(1) covers an officer who has “knowingly given incorrect, incomplete or misleading information”, at ₹250 for each day of default up to ₹25,000. The word “knowingly” does real work, which is why a documented contradiction beats your own belief.

If you want the record, appeal under section 19. In the Manipur case the Supreme Court held that a Commission entertaining a section 18 complaint has no jurisdiction to order access to information, and that the two sections are not substitutes for each other.

Yes, as to the part left unanswered. Section 7(8) requires a rejection to state “the reasons for such rejection”, the appeal period and “the particulars of the appellate authority”. Silence on one limb of a numbered request, with none of that, is a denial in substance.

Not once you frame it as a denial. Section 19(5) puts the onus to prove a denial was justified on the officer who denied the request, and the second proviso to section 20(1) puts the burden of proving he acted reasonably and diligently on him too.

Treat it as an admission that the file existed. Section 4(1)(a) requires an authority to maintain all its records duly catalogued and indexed. Ask for the record index, the retention schedule and any noting on the loss. A missing file with no loss report is itself a finding.

• Number the queries in your original application and mark each limb answered, part answered or ignored.
• Find one document you hold, or one published under section 4(1)(b), that contradicts the reply.
• Diarise 30 days from receipt for the first appeal, 90 days for the second, then read the companion section 18 complaint to the Information Commission. Section text sits on the RTI Act, 2005 reference page, the ladder in The RTI Playbook.

• RTI Act, 2005, Gazette text, sections 2, 4, 7, 18, 19, 20: https://rti.gov.in/Writereaddata/RTI-Act.pdf
• Chief Information Commr. and Anr vs State Of Manipur and Anr, Supreme Court, 12 December 2011: https://indiankanoon.org/doc/2120073/
• Department of Personnel and Training RTI portal: https://rti.gov.in/
• Central Information Commission: https://cic.gov.in/