The Right to Information (RTI) Act, which came into force on October 12, 2005, has completed twenty years. This milestone offers an opportunity to assess how far the Act has contributed to strengthening democracy by enabling citizens to access government information, thereby fostering transparency and accountability.

The RTI Act was envisioned as a tool to empower citizens, reduce corruption, and make democracy work more effectively by promoting transparency and accountability in governance. It allows individuals to seek information from public authorities, thus holding governments accountable for their actions.

The enactment of the RTI Act in India was the result of sustained efforts by grassroots movements and advocacy groups. The most prominent among them was the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS). In 1996, MKSS's advocacy led to the formation of the National Campaign for People's Right to Information (NCPRI), a coalition of civil society organisations and individuals that played a key role in pushing for a national RTI law.

Significant Achievements
Over the years, the RTI Act has played a pivotal role in exposing major scams, enhancing transparency in social welfare schemes, and expanding its scope through significant judicial rulings. The Act became a powerful tool for uncovering several high-profile corruption scandals, including the 2G Spectrum Scam (2008), the Commonwealth Games Scam (2010), the Adarsh Housing Society Scam (2010), and Irregularities in the Public Distribution System (PDS). In each of these cases, citizens and activists used the RTI Act to uncover irregularities and hold those in power accountable.

The Act also helped improve the delivery of social welfare schemes and public services, such as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), the distribution of pension and ration cards, and monitoring local governance mechanisms.

RTI provisions have been widely used by workers and activists to access wage payment records under MGNREGA. This helped expose corruption, identify ghost beneficiaries, and ensure that benefits reached the intended recipients. Countless ordinary citizens—especially the poor and marginalised—have used the RTI to access their rightful entitlements, which had been delayed or denied due to bureaucratic red tape and corruption.

The Act also strengthened local governance, with villagers using it to examine public expenditure in their areas, including exposing embezzlement in the Indira Awas Yojana housing scheme.

RTI has deepened participatory democracy by enabling public scrutiny. Millions of applications are filed each year, empowering citizens to question authority and demand accountability. It also reinforced the citizens' right to know about electoral candidates. For example, in response to a petition filed by the Association for Democratic Reforms, the Supreme Court directed the Election Commission to collect affidavits from candidates detailing any past or pending criminal cases.

Judicial decisions have further broadened the scope of the RTI Act. In 2020, the Supreme Court declared the Chief Justice of India's (CJI) office a "public authority" under the Act. Students were granted access to their answer sheets. The Reserve Bank of India was ordered to disclose information on defaulters in the public interest. The Court also clarified that administrative inconvenience is not a valid reason to withhold information under the Act.

Emaciation of the RTI Act
Since 2014, the RTI Act has faced increasing challenges. Critics point to a series of legal, institutional, and political developments that have undermined the Act's original intent.

Legal Challenges
The RTI Amendment Act, 2019, weakened the independence of the Information Commissions. It granted the central government the authority to determine the tenure, salaries, and service conditions of Information Commissioners at both the central and state levels. Critics argue this change compromises the commissions' autonomy and subjects them to executive influence.

Additionally, the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act 2023 amended Section 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act, creating a blanket exemption for all "personal information." Previously, such information could be disclosed if it served the public interest. This amendment restricts access to critical information, including the assets of public officials, the electoral bond purchasers, and the details of beneficiaries under welfare schemes. This change significantly hampers efforts to expose corruption and demand transparency.

Institutional Challenges
Institutional roadblocks have further weakened the RTI regime. Vacancies in Information Commissions have been left unfilled for extended periods. In October 2023, the Supreme Court warned that the RTI Act would become a "dead letter" if such vacancies continued.

According to a report (The Telegraph, October 16, 2025), of 28 State Information Commissions and the Central Information Commission, two were defunct, three lacked a chief, and eighteen had backlogs of over a year. As of mid-2022, more than 300,000 appeals were pending nationwide.

Proactive disclosure, mandated under Section 4 of the Act, remains weak due to bureaucratic resistance and outdated recordkeeping. While online filing portals have improved access, many government departments lack digitised records, making information retrieval cumbersome.

In many RTI responses and parliamentary answers, the government has claimed that the requested data is "not available." Examples include data on COVID-19 deaths due to oxygen shortages, electoral roll revisions and farmer suicides. Critics argue that such claims are tactics to evade accountability.

Political Challenges
RTI activists have increasingly faced harassment, threats, and violence. Since the Act's inception, hundreds of activists have been attacked or killed, creating a climate of fear. The Whistleblower Protection Act, 2014, designed to protect informants, remains poorly implemented, offering little real protection.

The 2019 amendments also compromised the independence of the Information Commissioners. With their tenure and remuneration controlled by the executive, commissioners may be inclined to issue pro-government rulings, further eroding public trust.

Despite a 2013 ruling by the Central Information Commission that political parties are "public authorities" under the RTI Act, they have continued to evade public scrutiny. The BJP's electoral bond scheme, later struck down by the Supreme Court, is widely viewed as an attempt to institutionalise opacity in political funding.

The Way Forward
To restore and strengthen the RTI Act, the following steps are essential:
1.    Restore the autonomy of Information Commissions by reverting the 2019 amendments and safeguarding tenure and salaries from executive control.
2.    Implement a transparent and time-bound appointment process, possibly with parliamentary oversight, to prevent commissions from becoming defunct.
3.    Enhance enforcement by empowering commissions to impose penalties for wilful denial or delay of information. Link violations to officials' service records.
4.    Improve capacity by providing adequate staffing, resources, and digital infrastructure to manage caseloads efficiently.
5.    Digitise government records, create public dashboards, and modernise information systems to streamline access.
6.    Raise public awareness, particularly in rural and marginalised communities, to increase usage of RTI.
7.    Protect RTI activists by effectively implementing the Whistleblower Protection Act and establishing fast-track courts to handle cases involving attacks on RTI users.
8.    Bring political parties under the RTI Act to ensure transparency in their funding and internal functioning, which has a direct impact on democratic governance.

What makes the RTI Act a visionary piece of legislation is its capacity to hold elected representatives and bureaucrats accountable to the people. Efforts to dilute its provisions reflect a broader agenda to centralise power and curtail democratic freedoms—potentially transforming India into an autocracy aligned with Hindutva ideology.

Citizens must remain vigilant and vocal in resisting these attempts. Restoring the original spirit and strength of the RTI Act is essential to preserving transparency, accountability, and democracy in India.