Relevance (UPSC): GS-II – Polity & Governance (Transparency, Privacy, Citizen Charters)

A mason in Beawar files a request under the Right to Information Act, 2005 to ask why his widow pension has stopped. Weeks later he gets copies of orders, names of sanctioning officers, and the pension is restored. This is the everyday power of India’s right-to-know law. Two decades on, that power faces a new test: how to protect transparency while respecting privacy in a digital State.

What changed—and why people worry

• Personal information shield widened. The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 amends Section 8(1)(j) of the Right to Information Act. Earlier, personal information could be disclosed when larger public interest justified it, and anything that could not be denied to Parliament or a State Legislature could not be denied to a citizen. The amendment narrows this window. Officials can now reject more requests by simply calling them personal.
  
• Institutional independence thinned. The Right to Information (Amendment) Act, 2019 let the Union decide the tenure and salaries of Information Commissioners, raising doubts about autonomy.
  
• Backlog and low compliance. Vacant posts, delayed first appeals, and weak proactive disclosure have created long queues; many citizens give up before reaching the commissions.
  

The constitutional balance we must keep

• Right to information flows from freedom of speech and expression (Article 19).
  
• Right to privacy is a fundamental right (Justice K.S. Puttaswamy, 2017).
  
• The bridge is a public-interest and proportionality test: disclose what serves accountability, with the least harm to privacy.
  

What must remain visible

• Use of public money and public power. Audit paras, tender evaluations, muster rolls, beneficiary lists, inspection notes, and minutes of regulatory decisions.
  
• Assets, conflicts and qualifications of public officials. Annual asset declarations, interests in companies receiving State contracts, education claims made to secure public office.
  
• Delivery records that affect life and liberty. Food rations, pensions, health access, arrest and detention registers—released quickly with masking of sensitive identifiers.
  

A practical rescue plan: “open by default, private by design”

1. Restore the public-interest override. Through rules and court-tested guidelines, make it explicit that information linked to use of public funds or public functions is presumptively disclosable after masking names and numbers.
   
2. Harmonise Right to Information and data-protection rules. Publish a harm test and proportionality checklist for Public Information Officers: purpose, necessity, minimality, and masking steps.
   
3. Strengthen commissions, not paperwork. Fill all vacancies; give exclusive benches for life-and-liberty cases; publish monthly dashboards on pendency, orders complied, and penalties imposed.
   
4. Proactive disclosure 2.0. Every department to maintain a real-time disclosure portal: contracts, subsidies, transfers, inspection reports, and geo-tagged works—machine readable, searchable, and in local languages.
   
5. Protect seekers and whistle-blowers. Fast-track protection requests; safe houses in each district; strict action for threats or doxing of applicants.
   
6. Local social audits. Wall-painted budgets, jan sunwai public hearings, school and ration audits—simple formats that reduce the need for individual applications.
   
7. Privacy-respecting release. Replace blanket denial with anonymised datasets and partial disclosure; show reasons for redactions on every page.
   

Five key terms—

• Public interest test: ask whether disclosure will improve accountability or protect rights; if yes, prefer openness with masking.
  
• Proportionality: release only as much personal detail as is necessary for accountability.
  
• Proactive disclosure: information the government must publish without being asked.
  
• Information Commission: independent body that hears appeals and imposes penalties.
  
• Harm test: assess likely harm from disclosure and whether mitigation (masking, delay) can reduce it.
  

If a rule would keep a citizen at arm’s length from files that decide her pension, ration or scholarship, it repeats the bazaar’s two-finger insult. A just State holds the files open, hides what must be private, and answers quickly.

Exam hook

Key takeaways

• India needs both transparency and privacy; the bridge is public interest with proportionality.
  
• The 2023 data-protection amendment narrows the disclosure window; strong rules and active commissions can reopen it.
  
• Proactive disclosure and local social audits reduce conflict, queues and corruption.
  

UPSC Mains question
“Right to Information and the Right to Privacy are complementary, not competitors.” Discuss in the context of the 2023 data-protection amendment to Section 8(1)(j) of the Right to Information Act. Propose a rule-book for Public Information Officers that preserves accountability while protecting personal data.

UPSC Prelims question
Q. With reference to India’s transparency framework, consider the following statements:

1. The Right to Information Act allows denial of personal information unless larger public interest justifies disclosure.
   
2. The 2023 data-protection law amended the Right to Information Act to narrow the personal-information disclosure exception.
   
3. Proactive disclosure under Section 4 of the Right to Information Act requires public authorities to publish certain categories of information without requests.
   Which of the statements given above are correct?
   Answer: 1, 2 and 3.
   

One-line wrap
Do not bury the right to know—make the State open by default and private by design, so the promise of Right to Information lives on in everyday life.