File an RTI
A badly worded request is refused in thirty days. A well worded one gets you the record. This writes the second kind.
Everything below happens in your browser. Nothing you type is sent anywhere, stored anywhere, or seen by us — there is no server behind this page. When you are done you copy the text and file it yourself. We do not file on your behalf and this is not legal advice.
Who holds it
Getting this wrong costs you the feeWhich government?
The fee
₹10 for a central application, paid on the portal by UPI, net banking, or a debit or credit card through the SBI gateway. States set their own fee and it is usually ₹10 to ₹20.
Nothing at all if you are below the poverty line — attach the certificate from the appropriate government with the application.
Both appeals are free. No fee for a first appeal, and none for a second appeal or complaint to the Information Commission.
Ask for a record
The single most common reason a request failsWhy requests get refused
The Act gives you a right to information held in a record. It does not oblige anyone to explain themselves, form an opinion, or answer a question they have not already written down somewhere. So the wording decides the outcome before anyone reads the substance.
- Don't ask why. "Why was the tender cancelled" is a question. "A copy of the file notings and the order recording the cancellation of tender no. X" is a record.
- Don't ask for opinions, reasons or hypotheticals. Ask for the note, the minutes, the order, the correspondence, the register, the inspection report.
- Name a period. "Between 1 April 2025 and 31 March 2026", not "recently".
- One subject per application. Several unrelated subjects invite a refusal or a split.
- Number every item separately so a partial refusal is visible and appealable item by item.
Useful openings
Click one to drop it into an item below.
What can be refused
Section 8(1) lets a public authority withhold, broadly: national security and foreign relations; anything a court has forbidden; breach of privilege of a legislature; commercial confidence and trade secrets; fiduciary information; information received in confidence from a foreign government; anything endangering a life or identifying a law-enforcement source; material impeding an investigation or prosecution; cabinet papers while a decision is pending; and personal information with no public interest in it.
Three things worth knowing: several of those fall away where the public interest in disclosure outweighs the harm; records more than twenty years old are generally to be given; and if the authority misses its deadline the information must be supplied free of charge.
Paraphrased. Read the Act itself before you rely on any of it.
Write it
The portal field takes 3,000 charactersThe application
Name it as precisely as you can. If you send it to the wrong one, section 6(3) requires that it be transferred to the right authority within five days — but that costs you a month.
Your application
Updates as you type. Paste this into the portal's text box, or print it and post it.
Fill the form and this writes itself.
0 / 3,000 characters
Over 3,000 characters? The central portal takes the overflow as a PDF in the Supporting Document field.
Diary the dates
An appeal filed late is an appeal lostWhat happens when
| Pick a date and this fills in. |
Timings follow the Act's ordinary periods. The decision windows for appeals are widely stated but worth confirming against the Act and your Information Commission's own rules before you rely on a date.
If nothing arrives
Silence is a deemed refusal. You do not have to wait for a reply that is not coming — once the thirty days lapse, the first appeal is open.
A first appeal against an application filed online must itself be filed online, and needs the original registration number and the email address you used.
The second appeal or complaint goes to the Central Information Commission at cic.gov.in, or your State Information Commission. Both are free.