The Wire: New Delhi: Tuesday, June 23,
2026.
'Does the CIC even read the data tables before they are published and tabled in Parliament is a fundamental question that they must answer,” the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative's report said.
A
new report on the implementation trends of the Right to Information (RTI) Act,
2005, released by the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) in June, has
found glaring inconsistencies in the Central Information Commission’s annual
report for 2024-25.
In its latest report the CIC had claimed 100% compliance in the submission of RTI statistics by the public authorities under its jurisdiction. However, CHRI found that 611 public authorities were missing from the CIC’s annual report for 2024-25. In the previous year, the number of authorities missing in the CIC report was 615. The commission has claimed 100% compliance in both reports.
CHRI’s report also highlighted that the Union Territory (UT) of Ladakh has been missing from the CIC’s reports since the bifurcation of Jammu and Kashmir in 2019. “Having promoted the use of RTI in the undivided J&K, we are aware of the existence of a vibrant group of RTI activists in Ladakh. Unfortunately, data about their interventions does not merit a mention in the CIC’s annual reports,” the report said.
“The CIC's annual report for 2024-25 ought to have rung alarm bells within the Union Government. While the number of RTIs has increased, disposal rates have come down,” Venkatesh Nayak, Director at the CHRI’s India office, told The Wire.
Receipt and disposal of RTI applications
According to the CHRI report, five ministries Corporate Affairs, Finance, Railways, Education and Defence accounting for about 25% of the 2,303 public authorities, received more than half the total number of RTI applications filed in 2024-25.
In a first, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, with 65 public authorities under it, received 2.54 lakhs RTI applications, overtaking the Ministry of Finance, which has over 200 public authorities. “The reasons for change in the trend are worth probing because the Corporate Affairs Ministry is a regulatory ministry with limited public dealing. The Finance Ministry’s RTI data comprises of data reported by banks, insurance companies and debt recovery tribunals amongst others, which deal with the public directly,” the report said.
“What was labelled as a law for empowering citizens belonging to the marginalised and disadvantaged segments of society, has been used more frequently in the Corporate Affairs Ministry which has very limited dealing with them,” Nayak pointed out.
The number of RTI applications filed in 2024-25 increased by 2.52% over the previous year. However, compared with 2020-21 the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic the volume of RTI applications has grown by 34%, the report said.
Backlog
The backlog of RTI applications pending from the previous year across the 2,303 reporting public authorities increased by 3.03% in 2024-25, the report said.
The Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs remained the only one to maintain a zero backlog. Of the remaining 54 ministries and standalone departments, only 13 reported a reduction in pending RTI applications.
The most significant improvement was recorded by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, where the backlog fell sharply from 12,413 RTI applications in 2023-24 to 1,619 in 2024-25.
On the contrary, four ministries reported a significant increase in backlog figures, namely. These are the ministries of Education (7,282), Defence (4,516), Housing and Urban Affairs (3,919) and Labour and Employment (3,006).
The Air Force (2,999), Prime Minister’s Office (282), Election Commission of India (168), the Central Information Commission (101) and the NITI Aayog (71) also reported a significant increase in backlog figures in 2024-25 as compared to the previous year, the report said.
Increase in applications but reduction in fee collection
The CHRI report also points to a puzzling trend. While the number of RTI applications increased by 2.52% year-on-year, the fee collection including application and additional fee decreased by 6.15% and 4.21% respectively.
The Corporate Affairs ministry, despite reporting a 13.07% increase in the number of RTI applications received in 2024-25, reported a 31.36% fall fee collection (application and additional fees included), the report said. Similarly, the Ministry of Panchayati Raj received 7,143 RTI applications in 2024-25 but reported collecting only Rs 100 in application fee. In the preceding year, this ministry reported collecting Rs 210 as application fee against 6,738 RTI applications, the report said.
“As non-BPL applicants are required to pay an application fee of Rs 10/- the quantum of application fee collected would imply the submission of 5.20 lakh unique RTI applications in 2024-25 for which application fee was paid. Does this mean that the remaining 12.75 RTI applications were submitted by applicants belonging to the Below Poverty Line category?” the report asked.
“Given the fact that the heaviest workload of RTI applications is reported from ministries like Corporate Affairs, Finance and Defence amongst the top-5, whose public authorities do not have direct dealing with BPL families, the anomalies with regard to the RTI fees statistics might be blamed on poor accounting and reporting by the public authorities,” it added.
Penalties and rejection
Another inconsistency highlighted in the CHRI report relates to penalties imposed on officials for violating the RTI Act. While the CIC's annual report states that penalties amounting to Rs 1.56 lakh were imposed in 2024-25 and that nearly Rs 1 lakh was recovered from Central Public Information Officers (CPIOs), the detailed statistical tables in the same report record only Rs 453 as the total penalty amount collected across 2,303 public authorities.
The report also points to several “bewildering entries”, including penalties of Rs 1, Rs 2, Rs 4, Rs 17 and Rs 79 reported by various ministries and departments. “These figures are much lower than the minimum penalty of Rs 250 that can be imposed under the RTI Act. Does the CIC even read the data tables put together before they are published and tabled in Parliament is a fundamental question that they must answer,” the report asked.
A similar inconsistency is present in the rejection data provided by the CIC. “According to the CIC, 3% of the RTI applications i.e., 58,501 requests were rejected by 2,303 public authorities across the Union Government including the UTs which reported their RTI data in 2024-25. However, at the end of the data table in Annexure 1 of the CIC’s annual report the total of the exemption clause-wise rejections is shown as 57,985 cases,” the report said.
Among the ministries which reported the highest number of rejections, the finance ministry (36.74%) took the lead, followed by the Union home ministry (12.71%) and defence ministry (8.51%). This, despite the home ministry not appearing in the list of ministries receiving the bulk of applications. “Just these three Ministries had contributed to more than half (almost 58%) of the total number of rejections,” the report highlighted.
The ministries of Cooperation Panchayati Raj, Tribal Affairs, Minority Affairs, Parliamentary Affairs and Development of the Northeastern Region reported NIL rejections, it added.
Surprisingly, the ECI too reported zero rejections for the corresponding years, despite instances pointed out in the report where the election body had refused to provide information.
“The Election Commission of India (ECI) reported zero rejections for the years 2024-25 and 2023-24. However, this author was denied access to information under Section 7(9) in at least two cases by the CPIOs of the ECI during this period. This does not count as rejection for the ECI,” the report said.
‘High-level of dissatisfaction with RTI responses’
The number of first appellate appeals (FAA) were 2.5 times the number of RTI appeals rejected by the government. The ministries of Finance, Education, Railways, Defence and Home Affairs accounted for more than one half (51.85%) of the total number of first appeals filed across the Union Government (UTs included, the report said.
The poorest first-appeal disposal rates were reported by the Supreme Court of India (0.67%), the Election Commission of India (1.88%), the Comptroller and Auditor General (2.75%) and the Prime Minister's Office (6.15%). In contrast, the President's Secretariat disposed of over 90% of the 850 appeals it received, while the Central Information Commission resolved 593 of the 616 first appeals filed before it, with a disposal rate of over 96%, the report said.
“Despite all these trends, the CIC has not indicated what it plans to do to probe these matters and improve implementation of the law. The commission has to become an impartial auditor instead of remaining a mere accountant of the performance of public authorities. Further, the CIC must take resolute action to prevent the myriad errors in the data reporting which our study has pointed at,” Nayak said.
(This article went live on June twenty-second, two thousand twenty six, at forty-seven minutes past four in the afternoon.)
'Does the CIC even read the data tables before they are published and tabled in Parliament is a fundamental question that they must answer,” the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative's report said.
In its latest report the CIC had claimed 100% compliance in the submission of RTI statistics by the public authorities under its jurisdiction. However, CHRI found that 611 public authorities were missing from the CIC’s annual report for 2024-25. In the previous year, the number of authorities missing in the CIC report was 615. The commission has claimed 100% compliance in both reports.
CHRI’s report also highlighted that the Union Territory (UT) of Ladakh has been missing from the CIC’s reports since the bifurcation of Jammu and Kashmir in 2019. “Having promoted the use of RTI in the undivided J&K, we are aware of the existence of a vibrant group of RTI activists in Ladakh. Unfortunately, data about their interventions does not merit a mention in the CIC’s annual reports,” the report said.
“The CIC's annual report for 2024-25 ought to have rung alarm bells within the Union Government. While the number of RTIs has increased, disposal rates have come down,” Venkatesh Nayak, Director at the CHRI’s India office, told The Wire.
Receipt and disposal of RTI applications
According to the CHRI report, five ministries Corporate Affairs, Finance, Railways, Education and Defence accounting for about 25% of the 2,303 public authorities, received more than half the total number of RTI applications filed in 2024-25.
In a first, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, with 65 public authorities under it, received 2.54 lakhs RTI applications, overtaking the Ministry of Finance, which has over 200 public authorities. “The reasons for change in the trend are worth probing because the Corporate Affairs Ministry is a regulatory ministry with limited public dealing. The Finance Ministry’s RTI data comprises of data reported by banks, insurance companies and debt recovery tribunals amongst others, which deal with the public directly,” the report said.
“What was labelled as a law for empowering citizens belonging to the marginalised and disadvantaged segments of society, has been used more frequently in the Corporate Affairs Ministry which has very limited dealing with them,” Nayak pointed out.
The number of RTI applications filed in 2024-25 increased by 2.52% over the previous year. However, compared with 2020-21 the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic the volume of RTI applications has grown by 34%, the report said.
Backlog
The backlog of RTI applications pending from the previous year across the 2,303 reporting public authorities increased by 3.03% in 2024-25, the report said.
The Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs remained the only one to maintain a zero backlog. Of the remaining 54 ministries and standalone departments, only 13 reported a reduction in pending RTI applications.
The most significant improvement was recorded by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, where the backlog fell sharply from 12,413 RTI applications in 2023-24 to 1,619 in 2024-25.
On the contrary, four ministries reported a significant increase in backlog figures, namely. These are the ministries of Education (7,282), Defence (4,516), Housing and Urban Affairs (3,919) and Labour and Employment (3,006).
The Air Force (2,999), Prime Minister’s Office (282), Election Commission of India (168), the Central Information Commission (101) and the NITI Aayog (71) also reported a significant increase in backlog figures in 2024-25 as compared to the previous year, the report said.
Increase in applications but reduction in fee collection
The CHRI report also points to a puzzling trend. While the number of RTI applications increased by 2.52% year-on-year, the fee collection including application and additional fee decreased by 6.15% and 4.21% respectively.
The Corporate Affairs ministry, despite reporting a 13.07% increase in the number of RTI applications received in 2024-25, reported a 31.36% fall fee collection (application and additional fees included), the report said. Similarly, the Ministry of Panchayati Raj received 7,143 RTI applications in 2024-25 but reported collecting only Rs 100 in application fee. In the preceding year, this ministry reported collecting Rs 210 as application fee against 6,738 RTI applications, the report said.
“As non-BPL applicants are required to pay an application fee of Rs 10/- the quantum of application fee collected would imply the submission of 5.20 lakh unique RTI applications in 2024-25 for which application fee was paid. Does this mean that the remaining 12.75 RTI applications were submitted by applicants belonging to the Below Poverty Line category?” the report asked.
“Given the fact that the heaviest workload of RTI applications is reported from ministries like Corporate Affairs, Finance and Defence amongst the top-5, whose public authorities do not have direct dealing with BPL families, the anomalies with regard to the RTI fees statistics might be blamed on poor accounting and reporting by the public authorities,” it added.
Penalties and rejection
Another inconsistency highlighted in the CHRI report relates to penalties imposed on officials for violating the RTI Act. While the CIC's annual report states that penalties amounting to Rs 1.56 lakh were imposed in 2024-25 and that nearly Rs 1 lakh was recovered from Central Public Information Officers (CPIOs), the detailed statistical tables in the same report record only Rs 453 as the total penalty amount collected across 2,303 public authorities.
The report also points to several “bewildering entries”, including penalties of Rs 1, Rs 2, Rs 4, Rs 17 and Rs 79 reported by various ministries and departments. “These figures are much lower than the minimum penalty of Rs 250 that can be imposed under the RTI Act. Does the CIC even read the data tables put together before they are published and tabled in Parliament is a fundamental question that they must answer,” the report asked.
A similar inconsistency is present in the rejection data provided by the CIC. “According to the CIC, 3% of the RTI applications i.e., 58,501 requests were rejected by 2,303 public authorities across the Union Government including the UTs which reported their RTI data in 2024-25. However, at the end of the data table in Annexure 1 of the CIC’s annual report the total of the exemption clause-wise rejections is shown as 57,985 cases,” the report said.
Among the ministries which reported the highest number of rejections, the finance ministry (36.74%) took the lead, followed by the Union home ministry (12.71%) and defence ministry (8.51%). This, despite the home ministry not appearing in the list of ministries receiving the bulk of applications. “Just these three Ministries had contributed to more than half (almost 58%) of the total number of rejections,” the report highlighted.
The ministries of Cooperation Panchayati Raj, Tribal Affairs, Minority Affairs, Parliamentary Affairs and Development of the Northeastern Region reported NIL rejections, it added.
Surprisingly, the ECI too reported zero rejections for the corresponding years, despite instances pointed out in the report where the election body had refused to provide information.
“The Election Commission of India (ECI) reported zero rejections for the years 2024-25 and 2023-24. However, this author was denied access to information under Section 7(9) in at least two cases by the CPIOs of the ECI during this period. This does not count as rejection for the ECI,” the report said.
‘High-level of dissatisfaction with RTI responses’
The number of first appellate appeals (FAA) were 2.5 times the number of RTI appeals rejected by the government. The ministries of Finance, Education, Railways, Defence and Home Affairs accounted for more than one half (51.85%) of the total number of first appeals filed across the Union Government (UTs included, the report said.
The poorest first-appeal disposal rates were reported by the Supreme Court of India (0.67%), the Election Commission of India (1.88%), the Comptroller and Auditor General (2.75%) and the Prime Minister's Office (6.15%). In contrast, the President's Secretariat disposed of over 90% of the 850 appeals it received, while the Central Information Commission resolved 593 of the 616 first appeals filed before it, with a disposal rate of over 96%, the report said.
“Despite all these trends, the CIC has not indicated what it plans to do to probe these matters and improve implementation of the law. The commission has to become an impartial auditor instead of remaining a mere accountant of the performance of public authorities. Further, the CIC must take resolute action to prevent the myriad errors in the data reporting which our study has pointed at,” Nayak said.
(This article went live on June twenty-second, two thousand twenty six, at forty-seven minutes past four in the afternoon.)
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