When your RTI is rejected — appeals and penalties

A rejection by the Public Information Officer under the Right to Information Act, 2005 — whether on the merits of a Section 8 or Section 9 exemption, on the ground that the information is not held by the public authority, or by a non-response that has run past the thirty-day window in Section 7(1) — is not the end of the road. The Act builds a three-track grievance architecture: a first appeal to the First Appellate Authority under Section 19(1) within thirty days; a second appeal to the Central Information Commission or the relevant State Information Commission under Section 19(3) within ninety days; and a parallel complaint route to the Commission under Section 18. The Commission can order release of the record, can compensate the applicant under Section 19(8)(b), and can impose a Section 20 penalty of two hundred and fifty rupees per day on the PIO subject to a ceiling of twenty-five thousand rupees. The High Court's writ jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution survives the Section 23 finality clause, as the Supreme Court confirmed in Namit Sharma v Union of India, (2013) 1 SCC 745.

The Right to Information Act, 2005 — a statute the Supreme Court in Chief Information Commissioner v State of Manipur, (2011) 15 SCC 1 described as the legislative actualisation of the right to information that Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution had implied for three decades — does not stop at imposing a thirty-day disclosure clock on the Public Information Officer. The Act anticipates that PIOs will refuse, will under-supply, will sit out the clock, or will plead an exemption that does not apply. Sections 18, 19 and 20 of the Act are the architecture of remedy. Section 19 is the appeal ladder — internal first appeal to a senior officer of the same public authority, second appeal to the Central or State Information Commission. Section 18 is the parallel complaint route — direct to the Commission, on a list of grievances that the section enumerates. Section 20 is the penalty provision — quantified, capped, and supplemented by departmental disciplinary action. Section 23 ousts the jurisdiction of the civil courts and the lower judiciary; Article 226 of the Constitution, however, preserves the High Court's supervisory jurisdiction over the Commission's quasi-judicial orders.

What counts as a "rejection" — Sections 7 and 8 of the RTI Act

A rejection that triggers the appeal architecture is wider than a written refusal under Section 8. Three categories qualify.

First — a written refusal on a substantive ground. Section 7(8) of the Act requires that where a request is rejected, the PIO must communicate the reasons, the period within which an appeal may be preferred, and the particulars of the appellate authority. The grounds invoked are typically one of the Section 8(1) exemptions — sovereignty and integrity under clause (a), commercial confidence under clause (d), fiduciary information under clause (e), personal information under clause (j) — or the Section 9 ground of copyright infringement, or the Section 24 carve-out for the intelligence and security organisations listed in the Second Schedule. A refusal without reasons referring to the specific clause invoked is itself an actionable deficiency.

Second — deemed refusal by non-response. Section 7(1) requires the PIO to dispose of the request within thirty days of receipt — forty-eight hours where the information concerns the life or liberty of a person. Section 7(2) makes a failure to respond within the time limit "deemed to be a refusal". The deemed-refusal limb is the most common trigger of an appeal, because PIOs more often let the clock expire than write reasoned rejection orders.

Third — partial or evasive disclosure. Where the PIO supplies some but not all of the information sought, or supplies it in a form that does not meet the request, the applicant is treated as aggrieved by the partial decision. Section 10 of the Act in fact contemplates severability — the PIO is to disclose the disclosable part of a record even where another part is exempt — and a failure to apply Section 10 properly is itself a ground of appeal.

Step 1 — First appeal to the First Appellate Authority under Section 19(1)

Section 19(1) of the Act creates the first rung of the ladder. Any person aggrieved by a decision of the PIO — or by the non-disposal of the request within the Section 7(1) time limit — may, within thirty days from the expiry of that limit or from the receipt of the PIO's order, prefer an appeal to "such officer who is senior in rank" to the PIO in the same public authority. Every public authority is required, in practice, to designate a First Appellate Authority (the "FAA"); the contact details are part of the disclosures mandated by Section 4(1)(b) of the Act.

Form and contents. The first appeal is not a court pleading. It is a written representation that should attach (a) a copy of the original RTI application; (b) the proof of payment of the application fee under Section 6(1); (c) the PIO's order rejecting or partially disclosing the information (or evidence of deemed refusal — typically a print of the application and the date of filing); and (d) a brief statement of the grounds of appeal — usually that the Section 8 exemption invoked does not cover the record, that Section 10 severability was not applied, or that the Section 7(1) clock has expired. No appeal fee is statutorily fixed at the Central level; some State rules prescribe a nominal first-appeal fee.

Timeline. Section 19(6) requires the FAA to dispose of the appeal within thirty days of receipt — extendable to forty-five days in exceptional cases with reasons recorded. The FAA's powers are co-extensive with the PIO's — the FAA may sustain the rejection, may direct disclosure (in whole or in part), or may remand the matter. Where the FAA dismisses the appeal or fails to decide within the statutory period, the applicant moves to the second-appeal stage.

Step 2 — Second appeal to the Central or State Information Commission under Section 19(3)

Section 19(3) creates the second rung of the ladder — and the substantive forum where most RTI disputes are finally resolved. A second appeal lies to the Central Information Commission ("CIC") where the public authority is a Central Government authority or a Union Territory administration, and to the relevant State Information Commission ("SIC") where the authority is a State Government body. The limitation is ninety days from the date on which the FAA's decision should have been made, or from the date on which the decision was actually received.

Constitution and powers of the Commission. The CIC under Section 12 and each SIC under Section 15 is a multi-member statutory body — a Chief Information Commissioner and up to ten Information Commissioners — appointed by the President of India (for the CIC) or by the Governor (for an SIC) on the recommendation of a committee that includes the Prime Minister/Chief Minister, the Leader of the Opposition, and a Cabinet Minister. The Supreme Court in Namit Sharma v Union of India, (2013) 1 SCC 745 read the Commissions as quasi-judicial tribunals — not as administrative bodies — because they decide adjudicatory disputes between an information seeker and a public authority, take evidence, and pass binding orders. The follow-up decision in Union of India v Namit Sharma, (2014) 14 SCC 716 refined the eligibility requirement but did not disturb the quasi-judicial characterisation.

Section 18 powers carry over. The Commission, while disposing of a second appeal, exercises the same powers it has in a Section 18 complaint inquiry — the powers of a civil court under the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, for summoning, requiring discovery and inspection of documents, receiving evidence on affidavit, and requisitioning public records. Section 18(4) carries a critical override: during the inquiry, the Commission may examine any record, and no record shall be withheld from it on any ground. The exemption clauses of Section 8, in other words, do not operate against the Commission itself — only against the public.

Remedies under Section 19(8). On the second appeal, the Commission may (a) require the public authority to take steps for compliance — including providing access to the information in a particular form (Section 19(8)(a)(i)), appointing a PIO where there is none (Section 19(8)(a)(ii)), publishing information (Section 19(8)(a)(iii)), making changes to record management (Section 19(8)(a)(iv)), training officers (Section 19(8)(a)(v)), and furnishing an annual report under Section 4 (Section 19(8)(a)(vi)); (b) require the public authority to compensate the complainant for any loss or other detriment suffered (Section 19(8)(b)); and (c) impose any of the penalties provided under Section 20 (Section 19(8)(c)).

Step 3 — The parallel complaint route under Section 18

Section 18 of the Act is not an appeal; it is a parallel direct-to-Commission complaint route. The grounds are wider than those of a Section 19 appeal — Section 18(1) lists six categories of grievance: (a) inability to submit a request because no PIO has been appointed by the public authority; (b) refusal of the PIO to accept an application; (c) refusal of access to information requested; (d) non-response within the time limit; (e) a fee demand the applicant considers unreasonable; and (f) the supply of incomplete, misleading or false information.

The Section 18 complaint is typically used where the grievance is not of the substantive-rejection kind that the Section 19 appeal ladder is built for — for instance, where the PIO has not been appointed in the first place, or where the public authority is refusing to even accept the application. The Supreme Court in Chief Information Commissioner v State of Manipur, (2011) 15 SCC 1 read Sections 18 and 19 as creating two distinct remedies — concurrent but not interchangeable. The Commission cannot, under Section 18, direct disclosure of the information itself; the disclosure direction comes through the Section 19 appeal route. What Section 18 produces is a Commission-led inquiry into the public authority's RTI compliance, with consequential Section 20 penalty exposure for the PIO.

Penalty under Section 20 — the cost of rejection

Section 20(1) of the Act imposes a quantified penalty on a PIO who, without reasonable cause, has refused to receive an application, has not furnished information within the Section 7(1) limit, has malafidely denied a request, has knowingly given incorrect, incomplete or misleading information, has destroyed information that was the subject of a request, or has obstructed the furnishing of information in any manner. The penalty is two hundred and fifty rupees per day from the date on which the application was received or the information furnished, subject to a maximum of twenty-five thousand rupees. The Commission, before levying the penalty, is required to give the PIO a reasonable opportunity to be heard; the burden of proving that the act was for reasonable cause and in good faith lies on the PIO under Section 20(1) proviso.

Section 20(2) supplements the monetary penalty with departmental disciplinary action — the Commission may recommend to the disciplinary authority, on a finding of persistent default, that disciplinary action be taken against the PIO under the service rules applicable to him. The Section 20 penalty is paid by the PIO personally; it is not absorbed by the public authority. The Supreme Court in Manohar Lal Sharma v Principal Secretary, (2014) 2 SCC 532 — though a coal-block-allocation case rather than an RTI matter — read administrative-law penalties of this kind strictly against the official, and Information Commissions have followed that approach in imposing Section 20 penalties.

The residual writ — Article 226 and the Section 23 finality clause

Section 23 of the Act provides that "no court shall entertain any suit, application or other proceeding in respect of any order made under this Act and no such order shall be called in question otherwise than by way of an appeal under this Act." The finality clause is, on its terms, comprehensive. The constitutional reality, however, is that the High Court's writ jurisdiction under Article 226 — and the Supreme Court's jurisdiction under Article 32 and Article 136 — survives every finality clause, because judicial review of administrative and quasi-judicial action is a basic feature of the Constitution. The Supreme Court in Namit Sharma v Union of India, (2013) 1 SCC 745 read the Information Commissions as quasi-judicial bodies whose orders are amenable to writ scrutiny; in Khanapuram Gandaiah v Administrative Officer, (2010) 2 SCC 1, the Court read the RTI scheme as cabined by the constitutional rights from which it draws its source, namely Article 19(1)(a) and Article 21.

In practice: where the Commission has decided wrongly on a Section 8 exemption, has refused to apply Section 10 severability, has imposed a penalty without hearing, or has refused to impose a penalty on a record that plainly justified it, the aggrieved party may move a writ petition before the High Court. The standard of review is the standard of administrative-law review — perversity, irrationality, denial of natural justice, jurisdictional error — not a merits re-hearing. The writ is the residual remedy; the appeal ladder is the primary remedy.

The DPDP overlay — what changes after 2023

The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 has, by Section 44(3), amended Section 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act — the personal-information exemption. The clause as amended now reads, in effect, that information which relates to "personal information" is exempt from disclosure, without the qualifications about public activity and public interest that the original Section 8(1)(j) carried. The Supreme Court in Central Public Information Officer, Supreme Court of India v Subhash Chandra Agarwal, (2020) 5 SCC 481 had, before the amendment, read Section 8(1)(j) as carrying a balancing test — a public-interest override and a public-activity nexus — that the amendment now appears to have removed. The interpretive contest over how the amended Section 8(1)(j) is to be read alongside the constitutional source of the right to information in Article 19(1)(a) is yet to play out at the Supreme Court level; until it is, the operating rule is that Section 8(1)(j) is the most common — and now the most contested — ground of RTI rejection.

The outcome — what the appeal architecture produces

The end-to-end view of the rejection-to-remedy roadmap is this. A PIO who refuses without reasons, or who lets the thirty-day Section 7(1) clock expire, faces a first appeal to the FAA within the same public authority, then a second appeal to the CIC or SIC within ninety days, and a parallel Section 18 complaint that the applicant may use where the grievance is procedural rather than substantive. The Commission can order release of the record under Section 19(8)(a), can compensate the applicant under Section 19(8)(b), and can impose a Section 20 penalty of up to twenty-five thousand rupees on the PIO personally. The Section 23 finality clause does not exclude the High Court's writ jurisdiction under Article 226, which remains the residual route for an applicant who is aggrieved by the Commission's order.

The practical lesson is that the appeal ladder is fast, cheap and procedurally lenient — no court fee at the Central level, no formal pleadings, no requirement of a lawyer. The two ninety-day blocks of limitation are the operative discipline. The PIO's exposure under Section 20 is the deterrent; the Commission's power to compensate under Section 19(8)(b) is the remedy. The pending question — how the DPDP Act's amendment of Section 8(1)(j) interacts with the constitutional source of the right to information — is the next frontier, and is likely to produce the Supreme Court's next significant RTI ruling.