National Herald: Opinion: Tuesday, March 25, 2025.
Will the amendment in the RTI Act through the Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023 destroy all public discourse?
"On one hand, India has
been topping the charts on misinformation and disinformation and on the other
hand, the Modi government is bent on weakening the Right to Information (RTI)
Act implemented by the Congress-led UPA government by bringing in the Data
Protection law," Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said in a post on X
on 4 March.
Whether it is information in the public sector like the list of ration cards, beneficiaries of MGNREGA, names of people involved in public welfare schemes, voter list in elections, or the names of billionaires who fled abroad after taking loans from government banks it is important for the public to have the names of all these in the public domain, he asserted.
The National Campaign for People’s Right to Information (NCPRI) started a signature campaign in March 2025 to urge the government to “roll back” the amendment in the RTI Act through the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act. “What is happening in the name of data protection is information protection,” said activist Medha Patkar, who noted that “people of Narmada Valley were able to root out 1,600 fake registries with the RTI Act”, but something like that would no longer be possible with the fresh amendments.
The RTI Act has been used to expose irregularities and corruption both before and after 2014 when Narendra Modi took over as prime minister. Several such pieces of information related to the prime minister himself. For instance, a disclosure by the government under the Act revealed that the Indian mission in Moscow had spent Rs 15 crore on two visits by the PM to Russia in 2024, both for two days each.
The July 2024 trip to Moscow cost the mission Rs 5.12 crore, including Rs 1.87 crore for a community reception. The October visit to Kazan, however, cost the embassy Rs 10.24 crore, with a staggering Rs 6.56 crore shown as ‘miscellaneous’ expenses. The information raised questions but produced no answers, of course.
If the Union government is to be believed, it wants to protect citizens’ ‘right to privacy’. It has, therefore, banned release of all ‘personal information’ under the Right to Information’ Act, which, one might add, already provides for non-disclosure of personal information unless related to public interest and activities. The DPDP Act, by contrast, seeks to exempt all personal information, whether related to public activities or not.
No citizen can now seek information on voters whose names may have been deleted, their names, addresses and religious affiliation to enable a social or public audit. No information can be sought from banks or the government about the names of borrowers whose loans have been written off.
However, the government’s touching faith in citizens’ right to privacy does not prevent it from demanding information about the marital status of couples and insisting that live-in-relationships be registered with the government. Nor does it shy away from exposing inter-faith couples to the risk of violence by making their personal details public.
The DPDP Act, passed in August 2023 and notified on 11 August the same year, protects the privacy of officials, contractors and politicians, but not citizens’ right to information. Rules, however, are yet to be framed and notified, adding to the growing anxiety among RTI activists described as ‘busybodies’ by the solicitor-general of India.
Pleas for not operationalising the amendment to section 8 (1)(j) of the RTI Act have been ignored until now. This is the section which exempts disclosure of personal information if it has no public bearing.
***
The ‘privacy’ issue is being cited by Delhi University to justify its refusal to disclose details of Prime Minister Modi’s Bachelor’s degree. The solicitor-general argued that RTI activists and citizens had no business seeking such personal details.
What Delhi University was asked to reveal under RTI were the names of all students who graduated in 1978. These names should have been available in the public domain because DU would have held a convocation and the names of graduating students in any case are made public on websites or otherwise, argues RTI activist Anjali Bharadwaj.
While the Central Information Commission had directed DU to disclose the details sought, DU challenged it. The case has lingered in Delhi High Court for eight years and can now be disposed of once the DPDP Act is operationalised.
Transparency activist Commodore Lokesh Batra filed RTI applications seeking information about the number of applications received for appointment as SEBI (Securities Exchange Board of India) chairperson, the post which fell vacant at the end of February 2025. The Union finance ministry replied to Batra on 17 March, saying 98 applications were received but refused to disclose their names on the grounds that it was ‘third party information’.
RTI applications to obtain asset details, educational qualifications and records of elected representatives and government functionaries can now be denied with the justification that the information is private and, therefore, confidential.
Bhardwaj, a vocal RTI campaigner and co-convenor of NCPRI, points out that the DPDP Act states that no names, criminal records, contact details or history of assets will be disclosed. “The Association for Democratic Reforms fought a long battle to ensure that candidates contesting elections would have to disclose their criminal records. This apparently will no longer be required," she says.
Similar demands for information about who are being enlisted to receive food grains and who are being denied will no longer be entertained. Similarly, details of villagers denied job cards under MGNREGA and those being covered can no longer be secured.
Nikhil Dey, who along with Aruna Roy was at the forefront of NCPRI, says, “They have destroyed the RTI Act and by doing so, they will end up destroying all public discourse. RTI has been made irrelevant because now one cannot ask for any personal details."
Ahmedabad-based RTI activist Pankti warns that the new law will end all transparency in governance. “Who will conduct social audits on schemes such as PDS (public distribution system) or MNREGA? Who will monitor governance? All disclosures will be withheld on the ground that the privacy of the concerned government officials would be affected."
Venkatesh Nayak, programme head of the Access to Information Programme points out that if one fundamental right, the Right to Privacy, clashes with another Right to Information one cannot be subjugated by the other.
There is a suspicion that the new law is designed to protect big tech companies, corporate interests and industry. The Act was passed faster than a bullet train and without being placed in the public domain. Members of the parliamentary standing committee on communications and information technology, NCPRI activists alleged, were asked to endorse a Bill they had not even seen.
Worse, the DPDP Act can be used as one more tool to harass organisations and the public at large, especially those involved in public monitoring of programmes or fact-finding on the ground.
Rolly Shivhare, an activist based in Bhopal says, “We do a lot of field work. If we want to know whether ration is reaching every home in a village or the pension status of village elders, our workers fan out to collect the information. Under the DPDP Act, we are now expected to document each individual’s consent and if this is not done, we can be fined up to Rs 500 crore. The RTI had fines that started at Rs 500 and went up to Rs 25,000. Now we will be constrained in conducting ground-level surveys because which organisation is in a position to pay such enormous fines?"
Will the amendment in the RTI Act through the Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023 destroy all public discourse?
Whether it is information in the public sector like the list of ration cards, beneficiaries of MGNREGA, names of people involved in public welfare schemes, voter list in elections, or the names of billionaires who fled abroad after taking loans from government banks it is important for the public to have the names of all these in the public domain, he asserted.
The National Campaign for People’s Right to Information (NCPRI) started a signature campaign in March 2025 to urge the government to “roll back” the amendment in the RTI Act through the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act. “What is happening in the name of data protection is information protection,” said activist Medha Patkar, who noted that “people of Narmada Valley were able to root out 1,600 fake registries with the RTI Act”, but something like that would no longer be possible with the fresh amendments.
The RTI Act has been used to expose irregularities and corruption both before and after 2014 when Narendra Modi took over as prime minister. Several such pieces of information related to the prime minister himself. For instance, a disclosure by the government under the Act revealed that the Indian mission in Moscow had spent Rs 15 crore on two visits by the PM to Russia in 2024, both for two days each.
The July 2024 trip to Moscow cost the mission Rs 5.12 crore, including Rs 1.87 crore for a community reception. The October visit to Kazan, however, cost the embassy Rs 10.24 crore, with a staggering Rs 6.56 crore shown as ‘miscellaneous’ expenses. The information raised questions but produced no answers, of course.
If the Union government is to be believed, it wants to protect citizens’ ‘right to privacy’. It has, therefore, banned release of all ‘personal information’ under the Right to Information’ Act, which, one might add, already provides for non-disclosure of personal information unless related to public interest and activities. The DPDP Act, by contrast, seeks to exempt all personal information, whether related to public activities or not.
No citizen can now seek information on voters whose names may have been deleted, their names, addresses and religious affiliation to enable a social or public audit. No information can be sought from banks or the government about the names of borrowers whose loans have been written off.
However, the government’s touching faith in citizens’ right to privacy does not prevent it from demanding information about the marital status of couples and insisting that live-in-relationships be registered with the government. Nor does it shy away from exposing inter-faith couples to the risk of violence by making their personal details public.
The DPDP Act, passed in August 2023 and notified on 11 August the same year, protects the privacy of officials, contractors and politicians, but not citizens’ right to information. Rules, however, are yet to be framed and notified, adding to the growing anxiety among RTI activists described as ‘busybodies’ by the solicitor-general of India.
Pleas for not operationalising the amendment to section 8 (1)(j) of the RTI Act have been ignored until now. This is the section which exempts disclosure of personal information if it has no public bearing.
***
The ‘privacy’ issue is being cited by Delhi University to justify its refusal to disclose details of Prime Minister Modi’s Bachelor’s degree. The solicitor-general argued that RTI activists and citizens had no business seeking such personal details.
What Delhi University was asked to reveal under RTI were the names of all students who graduated in 1978. These names should have been available in the public domain because DU would have held a convocation and the names of graduating students in any case are made public on websites or otherwise, argues RTI activist Anjali Bharadwaj.
While the Central Information Commission had directed DU to disclose the details sought, DU challenged it. The case has lingered in Delhi High Court for eight years and can now be disposed of once the DPDP Act is operationalised.
Transparency activist Commodore Lokesh Batra filed RTI applications seeking information about the number of applications received for appointment as SEBI (Securities Exchange Board of India) chairperson, the post which fell vacant at the end of February 2025. The Union finance ministry replied to Batra on 17 March, saying 98 applications were received but refused to disclose their names on the grounds that it was ‘third party information’.
RTI applications to obtain asset details, educational qualifications and records of elected representatives and government functionaries can now be denied with the justification that the information is private and, therefore, confidential.
Bhardwaj, a vocal RTI campaigner and co-convenor of NCPRI, points out that the DPDP Act states that no names, criminal records, contact details or history of assets will be disclosed. “The Association for Democratic Reforms fought a long battle to ensure that candidates contesting elections would have to disclose their criminal records. This apparently will no longer be required," she says.
Similar demands for information about who are being enlisted to receive food grains and who are being denied will no longer be entertained. Similarly, details of villagers denied job cards under MGNREGA and those being covered can no longer be secured.
Nikhil Dey, who along with Aruna Roy was at the forefront of NCPRI, says, “They have destroyed the RTI Act and by doing so, they will end up destroying all public discourse. RTI has been made irrelevant because now one cannot ask for any personal details."
Ahmedabad-based RTI activist Pankti warns that the new law will end all transparency in governance. “Who will conduct social audits on schemes such as PDS (public distribution system) or MNREGA? Who will monitor governance? All disclosures will be withheld on the ground that the privacy of the concerned government officials would be affected."
Venkatesh Nayak, programme head of the Access to Information Programme points out that if one fundamental right, the Right to Privacy, clashes with another Right to Information one cannot be subjugated by the other.
There is a suspicion that the new law is designed to protect big tech companies, corporate interests and industry. The Act was passed faster than a bullet train and without being placed in the public domain. Members of the parliamentary standing committee on communications and information technology, NCPRI activists alleged, were asked to endorse a Bill they had not even seen.
Worse, the DPDP Act can be used as one more tool to harass organisations and the public at large, especially those involved in public monitoring of programmes or fact-finding on the ground.
Rolly Shivhare, an activist based in Bhopal says, “We do a lot of field work. If we want to know whether ration is reaching every home in a village or the pension status of village elders, our workers fan out to collect the information. Under the DPDP Act, we are now expected to document each individual’s consent and if this is not done, we can be fined up to Rs 500 crore. The RTI had fines that started at Rs 500 and went up to Rs 25,000. Now we will be constrained in conducting ground-level surveys because which organisation is in a position to pay such enormous fines?"
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