The RTI Act 2005 — Birth, Use, And Slow Dilution
The Right to Information Act, 2005 (RTI Act) gave any Indian citizen the right to request information from any public authority, with a 30-day response window and penalties for non-compliance. It is one of the most-used citizen oversight laws in the world: estimates suggest over six million RTI applications are filed every year. It also tells a story about how a strong law can be slowly hollowed out by structural changes around it.
What the Act actually does
Section 3 gives the right. Section 4 requires public authorities to proactively publish key information without waiting for requests. Section 6 sets the application process. Section 7 sets a 30-day deadline for response. Section 19 creates an appeals mechanism to the Information Commission. Section 20 imposes penalties on officials who delay or refuse without cause.
What it has actually produced
RTI applications have surfaced: the Adarsh Society scam, the 2G spectrum allocation files, the Vyapam scam in Madhya Pradesh, food-grain rotting in FCI godowns, and hundreds of smaller state-level scandals that local journalists turned into national stories. It has also been used by ordinary citizens to chase pension claims, school admissions, and ration card disputes — which is what the Act was really designed for.
The 2019 amendment
The Right to Information (Amendment) Act, 2019 changed the tenure and salary of Information Commissioners — previously fixed by statute, now to be 'as may be prescribed by the central government'. This sounds technical. It is not. The Information Commission's power depends on the independence of its commissioners. When tenure and salary are set by the executive on a discretionary basis, commissioners have a structural reason to defer to the executive in disputes. The 2019 amendment passed despite significant opposition and a sustained campaign by RTI activists.
What has happened since
Three things. First, the pendency of appeals before the Central Information Commission has grown — figures published by SatarkNagrik Sangathan put the average wait time at over two years for some states. Second, the rate of penalties imposed on non-compliant officials has fallen. Third, the proactive disclosure mandate under Section 4 has effectively stopped being enforced in most ministries; most ministry websites have not updated mandated proactive disclosures for years.
What still works
The right itself is intact. Filing an RTI is still cheap (₹10 for a Central RTI), the form is short, and a determined applicant can still extract information that the system would prefer to bury. Journalists and citizen groups continue to use it effectively, particularly at the local level where bureaucratic resistance is weaker.
A real fix
Restoring the pre-2019 statutory tenure and salary protection for Information Commissioners is the most important structural fix. Beyond that: time-bound penalties (a daily fine that auto-accrues), publication of all rejected RTI applications with reasoning, and a refusal-rate league table for ministries.
Further reading
RTI Act 2005 on Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_Information_Act,_2005. RTI Foundation of India and SatarkNagrik Sangathan publish annual assessments. The Department of Personnel and Training website hosts the statute and rules.
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