How to file an RTI application — full procedure
An application under the Right to Information Act, 2005 is a statutory request, addressed to the Public Information Officer of a "public authority" within Section 2(h), seeking "information" within Section 2(f) which is "held by or under the control of" that authority within Section 2(j). The architecture of the request is fixed by Section 6, the timetable by Section 7, the fee regime by the Right to Information (Regulation of Fee and Cost) Rules, 2012 for Central public authorities and by the State rules for State public authorities. The Supreme Court in CBSE v Aditya Bandopadhyay, (2011) 8 SCC 497 read the Act as a tool of accountability while cautioning that "indiscriminate and impractical demands" would be counter-productive; the Delhi High Court Full Bench in Secretary General, Supreme Court of India v Subhash Chandra Agarwal, 166 (2010) DLT 305 (FB) and the Supreme Court in Central Public Information Officer, Supreme Court of India v Subhash Chandra Agarwal, (2020) 5 SCC 481 settled the framework for personal-information and judicial-collegium requests. This guide walks the procedural roadmap.
The Right to Information Act, 2005 is the statutory instrument through which the right of access to information held by public authorities — a right the Supreme Court has read into Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution since State of UP v Raj Narain, (1975) 4 SCC 428 and reaffirmed through SP Gupta v Union of India, AIR 1982 SC 149 and a long line of subsequent decisions — is operationalised in practice. The Act came into force on 12 October 2005 and overrides the Official Secrets Act, 1923 by virtue of Section 22. The premise of the regime is the one the Delhi High Court captured in The CPIO, Supreme Court of India v Subhash Chandra Agarwal, 162 (2009) DLT 135 — disclosure is the norm, refusal is the exception. The mechanism that translates that premise into a recoverable record is the Section 6 application, addressed to the Section 5 Public Information Officer of the public authority concerned, on payment of the fee prescribed by the appropriate fee rules, with the timetable in Section 7 controlling the outcome. This article walks the procedural roadmap.
The law in plain English — three doctrinal anchors
Three doctrinal anchors structure every RTI application before the procedural mechanics begin.
First — the constitutional source. The right to information is not a creature of the 2005 Act; it is a constitutional right that the Supreme Court has read into Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution. The Delhi High Court Full Bench in Secretary General, Supreme Court of India v Subhash Chandra Agarwal, 166 (2010) DLT 305 (FB) reaffirmed that "the source of right to information does not emanate from the Right to Information Act. It is a right that emerges from the constitutional guarantees under Article 19(1)(a)". The Act is, in the language of that judgment, "merely an instrument that lays down statutory procedure in the exercise of this right". The constitutional pedigree matters at the construction stage — the Supreme Court has consistently held that a statute giving effect to a fundamental right is to be given "the widest operation which its language will permit".
Second — the threefold gateway. Three statutory expressions control whether an application is maintainable at all. The body addressed must be a "public authority" within Section 2(h) — the Act covers all three organs of governance and any body "established or constituted" by or under the Constitution, by Parliamentary or State legislation, or "owned, controlled or substantially financed" by the appropriate Government, and any non-governmental organisation "substantially financed, directly or indirectly" by Government funds. The subject-matter must be "information" within Section 2(f) — the definition expressly extends to records, documents, memos, e-mails, opinions, advices, press releases, circulars, orders, logbooks, contracts, reports, papers, samples, models, data and any material in electronic form, and to information relating to a private body which a public authority can access under any other law. The information must be "held by or under the control of" the public authority within Section 2(j) — the Delhi High Court in Subhash Chandra Agarwal (2010 FB) read "held" broadly to include information "consciously retained" by the authority, but excluded "notes or jottings" not turned in as part of the file record.
Third — the disclosure-is-the-norm rule and its qualifications. The Supreme Court has consistently held — and the Delhi High Court Full Bench in Subhash Chandra Agarwal (2010) restated — that "the Act is premised on disclosure being the norm, and refusal, the exception". The qualifications are Section 8 (eleven heads of exemption, of which only some are subject to a public-interest override), Section 9 (copyright infringement), Section 11 (third-party objection procedure) and Section 24 (the Second Schedule intelligence and security organisations, subject to the corruption and human-rights carve-out). The Supreme Court in CBSE v Aditya Bandopadhyay, (2011) 8 SCC 497 added a qualification of its own — that the Act is not a tool for "frivolous, vexatious or mischievous" requests, and that "indiscriminate and impractical demands" of the public-authority workforce will frustrate the very purpose of the regime. The Supreme Court in Central Public Information Officer, Supreme Court of India v Subhash Chandra Agarwal, (2020) 5 SCC 481 held that even the office of the Chief Justice of India is a "public authority", while reading Section 8(1)(j) on personal information through a balancing test of public interest against privacy.
Identifying the public authority and the Public Information Officer
The first practical step in any RTI exercise is to identify the public authority that holds the information and the officer designated to receive the request.
The public authority. Section 2(h) reads broadly. It covers every Ministry, Department and attached or subordinate office of the Central and State Governments; every constitutional authority including the President, the Governors, the Election Commission, the Comptroller and Auditor General, the Union and State Public Service Commissions, and the Supreme Court and High Courts; every body created by Parliamentary or State law (statutory corporations, regulatory commissions, universities, panchayati raj institutions, municipal corporations); and every body — including a non-governmental organisation — that is owned, controlled or substantially financed directly or indirectly by the appropriate Government. The Central Information Commission's 3 June 2013 decision held that the six national political parties were "public authorities" because of indirect substantial financing through land at concessional rates, government accommodation, income-tax exemption and free air-time on the public broadcaster; the Government's 2013 amendment Bill to reverse that decision has not been passed and the question remains formally open, though no party has complied with the CIC's order.
The Public Information Officer. Section 5(1) requires every public authority to designate, at every administrative unit or office under it, a Central or State Public Information Officer to receive applications under the Act and to provide the information sought. Section 5(2) requires the designation, at each sub-divisional or sub-district level, of an Assistant Public Information Officer to receive applications for forwarding to the relevant PIO; the Assistant PIO does not decide on the merits. Section 5(3) requires the PIO to "deal with requests" and "render reasonable assistance" to persons seeking the information. The names, designations and contact details of the PIO and the First Appellate Authority (the officer senior in rank to the PIO, designated under Section 19(1)) are required to be published on the public authority's website under the Section 4(1)(b) suo motu disclosure regime — the practical rule is to consult the "RTI" tab on the public authority's website to identify the PIO before drafting the request.
The wrong-PIO problem and Section 6(3). Where the applicant addresses the request to a public authority that does not hold the information, or to a PIO who does not have jurisdiction over the subject-matter, Section 6(3) imposes a duty on the receiving PIO to transfer the application to the appropriate public authority within five days of receipt, and to inform the applicant. The thirty-day clock under Section 7 then runs from the date the appropriate PIO receives the transferred application. The Section 6(3) transfer obligation is on the PIO, not on the applicant — but a careful identification of the holding authority at the drafting stage avoids the five-day loss.
Drafting the application — Section 6 requirements
Section 6(1) prescribes the form of the request. It requires the applicant to make the request "in writing or through electronic means in English or Hindi or in the official language of the area in which the application is being made", accompanied by the prescribed fee. The address is "to the Central Public Information Officer or State Public Information Officer, as the case may be, of the concerned public authority". The application must specify "the particulars of the information sought". Section 6(2) is critical — the applicant "shall not be required to give any reason for requesting the information or any other personal details except those that may be necessary for contacting him".
The mandatory elements of a Section 6 application are these. The name of the public authority and the PIO designation — addressed to "The Public Information Officer, [Name of Department / Authority], [Address]". The applicant's name and contact address — Section 6(2) limits the personal details to those necessary for contact; the Act does not require a citizenship certificate, but the Act applies only to citizens (Section 3) and the PIO may seek clarification of citizenship in a doubtful case. A clear description of the information sought — the practical rule is one question per paragraph, numbered, framed in factual terms. The Supreme Court in Khanapuram Gandaiah v Administrative Officer, (2010) 2 SCC 1 held that the Act does not require a public authority to "create" information or to furnish "reasons for the decisions" of its officers; requests in the nature of questions seeking interpretation, opinion or speculation are outside the Act. The framing must accordingly be in the form of "please provide a copy of…" or "please furnish the following information held by your office…", not "please explain why…" or "what is the reason for…". The mode of supply — Section 7(9) entitles the applicant to seek the information in the form in which it is sought (inspection, certified copy, electronic form), unless that would disproportionately divert the resources of the public authority. The fee tender — the application must be accompanied by proof of payment of the prescribed application fee.
The application may be filed by post, by hand, by e-mail, or through the online RTI portal where one is operational. The Central Government maintains an online RTI portal which is now the practical default for Central public authorities; State Governments have analogous portals at varying levels of operational maturity.
The fee — RTI (Regulation of Fee and Cost) Rules, 2012 and State rules
The fee regime has two layers — the application fee payable at the time of filing, and the cost of supply payable at the stage of providing the information. For Central public authorities, the Right to Information (Regulation of Fee and Cost) Rules, 2012 (which superseded the 2005 Rules of the same name) fix the application fee at ten rupees, payable by demand draft, banker's cheque, Indian Postal Order, cash against receipt, or — for online applications — by net banking, credit or debit card. The cost of supply is two rupees per page of A4 or A3 paper for documents produced in photocopy; the actual cost or price for printed publications; fifty rupees per diskette or floppy for information in electronic form; and the actual cost in any other case. For inspection of records, the first hour is free and twenty rupees per hour is charged thereafter. For each State public authority, the corresponding State rules apply — most States have fixed the application fee at ten rupees, although some States have higher fees and a few States have lower fees; the per-page cost of supply ranges from two to five rupees across States.
The BPL exemption. Section 7(5) read with the Fee Rules exempts persons "below the poverty line" from the payment of any fee. The applicant claiming the exemption is required to enclose a copy of the BPL certificate issued by the appropriate State authority or a self-attested copy of the BPL ration card. The exemption covers both the application fee and the cost of supply.
The deemed-refusal-when-fee-not-paid trigger. Section 7(3) requires the PIO, on a determination that further fee is payable as cost of supply, to send an intimation to the applicant specifying the additional amount and the calculations; the applicant is to deposit the amount within the period specified, failing which the application may be deemed to lapse. The Section 7(6) corollary is that where the PIO fails to comply with the Section 7(1) thirty-day timetable, the information is to be provided free of charge — the cost of supply that would otherwise have been chargeable is forfeited as a sanction for delay.
The Section 7 timetable — thirty days, forty-eight hours and forty days
Section 7 fixes three timelines that, together, structure every RTI response.
The ordinary case — thirty days under Section 7(1). Where the application is made directly to the appropriate PIO, the PIO is required to provide the information sought, or reject the request for reasons specified under Section 8 or Section 9, "as expeditiously as possible and in any case within thirty days of the receipt of the request". The Section 7(2) consequence of non-compliance is "deemed refusal" — the failure to provide a decision within the thirty-day period is to be treated as a refusal of the request, opening the first-appeal route under Section 19(1).
The life-or-liberty case — forty-eight hours under Section 7(1) proviso. Where "the information sought for concerns the life or liberty of a person", the same provision contracts the timeline to forty-eight hours from the receipt of the request. The classic illustrations are requests by a detenu's family for information bearing on a current detention, by a patient or attendant for information on a public-health emergency, or by a person seeking information that bears on an immediate threat to safety. The forty-eight-hour clock has been applied by the Information Commissions in cases involving release-from-custody documents, hospital-treatment records of a patient under State care, and immediate-action information bearing on the security of an individual.
The third-party case — forty days under Section 11. Where the information sought relates to a third party or is treated as confidential by a third party, Section 11(1) requires the PIO to give written notice to the third party within five days of the receipt of the request, inviting representations on whether the information is to be disclosed. The third party has ten days to make representations. The PIO decides after considering the representations and may disclose the information "if the public interest in disclosure outweighs in importance any possible harm or injury to the interests of such third party". The third party has a right of appeal under Section 19(2) against the decision to disclose. The aggregate timetable in a third-party case is forty days from receipt of the application.
Section 7(8) — the reasons-for-rejection rule. Where the PIO decides to reject the request, the rejection must communicate (a) the reasons for the rejection, (b) the period within which an appeal against the rejection may be preferred, and (c) the particulars of the appellate authority. A bare rejection without reasons or without identifying the statutory exemption relied upon is a deficiency on the face of the order and is liable to be set aside on first appeal.
The exemptions — Sections 8 and 9
The PIO may reject the request — wholly or in part — only on the grounds enumerated in Section 8(1), Section 9, the Second Schedule organisations under Section 24, and (where applicable) the public-interest balancing under the proviso to Section 8(1). The Section 8(1) heads cover (a) information affecting sovereignty, integrity, security, strategic, scientific or economic interests of the State; (b) information forbidden from publication by a court or tribunal; (c) breach of privilege of Parliament or a State Legislature; (d) commercial confidence, trade secrets or intellectual property; (e) information held in a fiduciary relationship; (f) information received in confidence from a foreign government; (g) danger to the life or physical safety of a person or to a source of intelligence; (h) information impeding investigation or prosecution; (i) Cabinet papers — with the qualification that the deliberations are to be disclosed after the decision is taken and the matter is over; (j) personal information not related to public activity or causing unwarranted invasion of privacy; and the catch-all proviso that information that cannot be denied to Parliament or a State Legislature cannot be denied to any person.
The Section 8(1)(j) personal-information exemption. The Supreme Court in Girish Ramchandra Deshpande v Central Information Commissioner, (2013) 1 SCC 212 read Section 8(1)(j) as covering the service records, asset and liability declarations, and disciplinary-action records of a public servant, except where larger public interest justified disclosure. The Supreme Court in CPIO, Supreme Court of India v Subhash Chandra Agarwal, (2020) 5 SCC 481 — while holding that the office of the Chief Justice of India is a "public authority" — read the same provision through a balancing test of public interest against the privacy interest, with the privacy interest weighted heavier for purely personal matters and the public-interest weight increasing where the information bears on the discharge of public functions.
The Section 8(2) public-interest override. Notwithstanding the Official Secrets Act, 1923 and the exemptions in sub-section (1), the PIO may disclose information if the public interest in disclosure outweighs the harm to the protected interests. The override does not apply to clauses (a), (c) and (i) of Section 8(1) — sovereignty/security, parliamentary privilege, and Cabinet papers before the decision. The Section 10 partial-disclosure rule supplements the exemptions — where part of a record is exempt and part is not, the non-exempt part is to be separated and disclosed.
The appeal architecture — Section 19
The Act provides a two-tier appellate architecture.
First appeal — Section 19(1). An applicant who does not receive a decision within the thirty-day period, or who is aggrieved by the decision of the PIO, may prefer a first appeal to "such officer who is senior in rank to the Central Public Information Officer or State Public Information Officer, as the case may be, in each public authority". The first appeal must be filed within thirty days from the expiry of the thirty-day response period or from the receipt of the PIO's decision. The First Appellate Authority is required to dispose of the appeal within thirty days, extendable to forty-five days for reasons recorded in writing.
Second appeal — Section 19(3). A person aggrieved by the decision of the First Appellate Authority — or by the failure of the FAA to decide within the prescribed period — may prefer a second appeal to the Central Information Commission (for Central public authorities) or the State Information Commission (for State public authorities) within ninety days of the date the decision was received or should have been received. Section 19(8) confers wide remedial powers on the Commission — to require the public authority to provide access, to appoint a PIO, to publish information, to make changes to record-management practices, to compensate the complainant under Section 19(8)(b) for loss or detriment suffered, and to impose the Section 20 penalty on the PIO.
The Section 20 penalty. The Commission may, if it finds that the PIO has without reasonable cause refused to receive an application, or has not furnished the information within the specified period, or has malafidely denied the request, or has knowingly given incorrect, incomplete or misleading information, or has destroyed information that was the subject of the request, impose a penalty of two hundred and fifty rupees per day, subject to a maximum of twenty-five thousand rupees. The Commission may also recommend disciplinary action under the Service Rules.
The Section 18 complaint route. Distinct from the Section 19 appeal route, Section 18 confers on the Commission the power to receive and inquire into complaints from any person who has been unable to submit a request to a PIO (where none is designated), or who has been refused access, or who has not received a response, or who has been required to pay an unreasonable fee, or who believes that the information given is incomplete, misleading or false. The Section 18 complaint route does not have a strict limitation period but is not a substitute for the Section 19 appellate route on the merits of a refusal — the Supreme Court in Chief Information Commissioner v State of Manipur, (2011) 15 SCC 1 read the two routes as separate, with the Commission's powers under Section 18 confined to inquiry and disciplinary recommendation, not to the merits of disclosure.
Practical drafting — common pitfalls
Five drafting pitfalls produce the bulk of refusals and first-appeal traffic.
Question-form requests. Applications framed as "Why did the authority do X?" or "Explain the reasons for the decision in matter Y" are routinely rejected on the strength of Khanapuram Gandaiah — the Act does not require the authority to provide reasons or interpretations, only to disclose records. The correct framing is "please provide a copy of the file noting and order in matter Y dated [date]" — the reasons for the decision will then be visible in the disclosed record itself.
Over-broad requests. Requests of the form "provide all correspondence between the department and any other body on subject X over the last ten years" are routinely refused under Section 7(9) on disproportionate-diversion-of-resources grounds, or compressed by the PIO to a much narrower disclosure. The Aditya Bandopadhyay caution against "indiscriminate and impractical demands" is the doctrinal anchor. The correct framing is narrow, dated, and reference-numbered — "please provide a copy of the correspondence between X and Y in file no [no] between [date] and [date]".
Third-party-personal-information requests. Requests for the service records, salary, asset declarations, performance appraisals or disciplinary records of an identified public servant attract the Girish Ramchandra Deshpande Section 8(1)(j) framework — the applicant must demonstrate a larger public interest in disclosure that outweighs the privacy of the public servant. A bare request without articulating the public interest is liable to refusal.
Judicial-side requests on pending matters. Requests addressed to the registry of a court for information about pending matters, draft judgments, or judicial notes are limited by the Delhi High Court Full Bench framework in Subhash Chandra Agarwal (2010) and by the protection of judicial officers in Khanapuram Gandaiah (2010) — administrative-side information of the court is disclosable, judicial-side information is not. The Supreme Court in CPIO, Supreme Court of India v Subhash Chandra Agarwal (2020) settled that the office of the CJI is a "public authority" but that information held there is filtered through Section 8(1)(j).
Requests to a body that is not a public authority. The Act covers only "public authorities" within Section 2(h). Requests to a purely private body — a private company without substantial government financing, a private trust, a private association — are outside the Act. The route to information held by such a body is to ask the public authority that has access to it under any other law to provide it (the Section 2(f) tail) — for example, a company's filings with the Registrar of Companies are accessible from the RoC under the Companies Act framework, not directly from the company under the RTI Act.
Outcome — what the application architecture produces
The Section 6 application, dispatched to the Section 5 PIO of the correct Section 2(h) public authority, on tender of the appropriate fee under the 2012 Rules or the corresponding State rules, with a clear and narrow statement of the records sought in the language of Section 2(f), entitles the applicant to a decision within the Section 7 timetable — thirty days in the ordinary case, forty-eight hours where life or liberty is concerned, forty days where a third party is involved. A failure to decide within the timetable is a deemed refusal under Section 7(2). A decision to refuse must communicate reasons referring to the Section 8 or Section 9 exemption relied upon, the appellate authority, and the period of appeal under Section 7(8). A first appeal lies under Section 19(1) to the officer senior in rank to the PIO within thirty days; a second appeal lies under Section 19(3) to the Central or State Information Commission within ninety days. The Commission's remedial toolkit under Section 19(8) and its penalty power under Section 20 supply the enforcement spine of the regime.
The practical lesson is that the drafting stage is the determinative stage. A request narrowly framed in record-not-reason language, addressed to the correct PIO of the correct public authority, accompanied by the correct fee, anchored in the language of Sections 2(f), 2(h) and 2(j), is almost always disposed of on the merits. A request that is over-broad, question-form, addressed to the wrong authority, or unsupported by a fee or BPL certificate, is consumed by procedural objections before the merits are reached.
The contested questions — whether political parties are "public authorities" within Section 2(h) (CIC's 2013 decision unenforced, the 2013 amendment Bill never passed); the exact perimeter of the Section 8(1)(j) personal-information exemption after Subhash Chandra Agarwal (2020); the application of the deemed-refusal rule where the PIO communicates a partial response within the period — are working themselves out at the Commission and High Court levels. Until they are settled, the operating manual is the Act as written, read with the 2012 Fee Rules and the corresponding State rules, and informed by the disclosure-is-the-norm principle that the Delhi High Court framed in Subhash Chandra Agarwal (2010).