Analyzing the RTI (Amendment) Act 2019: Implications for Transparency

India’s Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005 is widely regarded as one of the most transformative legislations in the country’s democratic history. It gave ordinary citizens a legal tool to demand answers from government bodies – exposing corruption, tracking public funds, and holding institutions accountable. But in July 2019, Parliament passed an amendment that fundamentally altered how the law’s watchdog bodies would function. The RTI (Amendment) Act, 2019 shifted control over the tenure and salaries of Information Commissioners to the central government – and that single change set off a nationwide debate about whether India’s transparency framework had been quietly dismantled from within.

What the original RTI Act set out to do
What the 2019 amendment changed
The government’s justification: correcting an anomaly
Why critics say the amendment undermines independence
The chilling effect on decision-making
The salary downgrade and institutional prestige
Federalism concerns
The Supreme Court’s signal
Civil society’s response and the broader pattern
The path forward: what genuine reform would look like

What the original RTI Act set out to do

When the RTI Act came into force on October 12, 2005, it established a clear three-tier structure for citizens to access information. Public Information Officers at various government bodies were the first point of contact. Appeals from their decisions went to appellate authorities, and then to the Central Information Commission (CIC) or State Information Commissions (SICs) – independent quasi-judicial bodies with the power to impose penalties and direct disclosure. According to the government’s own statement when introducing the RTI Bill in 2004, the legislation aimed to give effect to citizens’ fundamental right to obtain information from governments – a right the Supreme Court had already recognized as part of Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution.

To insulate the Information Commissions from political pressure, the original law gave commissioners a fixed tenure of five years and salaries on par with the Chief Election Commissioner of India – effectively equivalent to a Supreme Court judge. The logic was straightforward: commissioners who could be removed or whose pay could be reduced would have little incentive to rule against the government. This structural independence was the backbone of the RTI’s credibility.

What the 2019 amendment changed

The RTI (Amendment) Act, 2019 was introduced in the Lok Sabha on July 19, 2019, and passed on July 22. The Rajya Sabha cleared it on July 25. It amended Sections 13 and 16 of the original RTI Act – the very sections that governed the tenure and pay of information commissioners at both the central and state levels.

The key changes were:

Tenure made discretionary: The fixed five-year term for the Chief Information Commissioner and all Information Commissioners was removed. Under the 2019 RTI Rules that followed, the tenure was set at three years – determined by the central government.
Salary parity with the Election Commission removed: The amendment replaced the fixed salary equivalence with a provision allowing the central government to prescribe remuneration as it saw fit. Subsequent RTI Rules fixed the new salary at ₹25,000 less than what existing commissioners were drawing.
Pension deduction provision removed: The original Act deducted pension from the salary of commissioners who had previously been in government service. The amendment scrapped this provision – a change critics say makes the appointment more attractive for retired bureaucrats already aligned with the government.
Central control extended to state commissions: Significantly, the amendment gave the central government the power to prescribe salaries and tenures for state-level commissioners as well – a federalism concern that has drawn sharp criticism.

The government’s justification: correcting an anomaly

The government’s official rationale was that the original RTI Act had created a structural inconsistency by equating Information Commissioners – heads of a statutory body – with the Chief Election Commissioner, who heads a constitutional body. The Minister of State for Personnel, Dr. Jitendra Singh, argued that the Election Commission was established under Article 324 of the Constitution and carried a mandate entirely different from that of the Information Commissions – and that linking the two in terms of salary and status was an anomaly that needed correction.

Proponents of the amendment also pointed to a broader vision: the government committed to proactive disclosure under Section 4 of the RTI Act, arguing that if public authorities routinely published information on their own, citizens would need to file fewer individual RTI applications. This “disclosure by default” approach – where standardized formats for commonly requested information are made available publicly – was presented as a long-term solution to reduce the burden on Information Commissions altogether.

Supporters further contended that the amendment would allow the government to rationalize and streamline the RTI structure by prescribing appropriate service conditions rather than having them rigidly fixed in the statute – giving flexibility to adapt to changing administrative needs.

Why critics say the amendment undermines independence

The opposition was swift and came from multiple quarters – civil society organizations, legal scholars, former commissioners, and opposition parties. At the heart of their argument was a simple premise: an institution whose financial security and length of service depend on the ruling government cannot be genuinely independent of it.

The chilling effect on decision-making

Writing in the Economic and Political Weekly, legal scholars noted that the amendment gave the union government the power to fix tenure, salaries, and service conditions of commissioners – and warned it posed an existential threat to the RTI Act. The concern was not merely theoretical. The Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) pointed out that Information Commissions have binding powers – unlike the Central Vigilance Commission, which only makes recommendations – and that their constitutional mandate to protect the fundamental right to information demanded at least the same level of independence as other watchdog bodies.

With a commissioner’s continuation in office now subject to government discretion, the fear is straightforward: commissioners may be reluctant to pass orders that embarrass or inconvenience the ruling government. Transparency advocates warned that the Commissions would increasingly be filled with commissioners who have a conservative approach to the transparency mandate – while those who champion public access to information would be less likely to be reappointed.

The salary downgrade and institutional prestige

CHRI noted that since seniority and pay grades are deeply embedded in India’s bureaucratic culture, reducing the financial parity between Information Commissioners and constitutional bodies significantly diminishes their institutional prestige. When commissioners are perceived as lower in the hierarchy, senior government officers are less likely to take their orders seriously – which directly affects compliance with RTI decisions.

Federalism concerns

The extension of central government control to state Information Commissions has added another dimension to the debate. Critics have flagged this as highly anomalous – states appoint their own SIC commissioners, but under the 2019 amendment, it is the centre that controls their pay and tenure. This creates a situation where state-level transparency bodies are financially dependent on an authority they were never accountable to – raising serious questions about the federal structure of the RTI framework.

The Supreme Court’s signal

The judiciary has not been silent on the state of India’s RTI machinery. In the landmark 2019 case of Anjali Bhardwaj vs Union of India, the Supreme Court directed the government to fill vacancies in Information Commissions on time and strongly advised that appointments should not be limited to retired government employees – calling for diversity in the selection process. The court’s direction has largely gone unheeded, with the practice of appointing retired bureaucrats continuing in most commissions.

Civil society’s response and the broader pattern

In March 2025, more than 30 civil society organizations – including the National Campaign for Peoples’ Right to Information (NCPRI), Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS), and Common Cause – jointly demanded a rollback of amendments weakening the RTI Act. Former Central Information Commissioner M.M. Ansari specifically cited the 2019 changes as having diluted the autonomy of Information Commissions. RTI activist Aruna Roy emphasized that the Act must be treated as a fundamental right enabling citizens to participate in democratic processes – and strengthened, not weakened.

The 2019 amendment has also been seen in the context of a broader trend. Analysts tracking two decades of RTI implementation have noted that since 2014, there has been a gradual erosion of the Act’s core principles – through amendments, bureaucratic resistance, and a rising backlog of appeals at understaffed commissions. The 2019 amendment is widely seen as the most significant institutional blow to the RTI framework in its history.

The situation has been further compounded by the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, which amended Section 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act to provide a blanket exemption for all personal data – removing the earlier public interest override that allowed disclosure when accountability demanded it. Transparency advocates have called this a second major blow to RTI after the 2019 Amendment.

The path forward: what genuine reform would look like

The core tension in the RTI Amendment debate is not between transparency and efficiency – it is between institutional independence and executive convenience. The structural safeguards that the original RTI Act built into the Information Commissions were not arbitrary; they were the product of years of civil society activism and democratic deliberation. Undoing them in the name of rationalization, without adequate public consultation or parliamentary scrutiny, raises serious questions about intent.

Genuine reform of the RTI framework – as recommended by transparency scholars and civil society – would need to address several fronts simultaneously. Experts have called for a transparent, time-bound appointment process for Information Commissioners that includes civil society representatives and opposition members; a mandatory requirement to fill vacancies before they arise; and a return to fixed, non-discretionary tenures and salaries insulated from government control. On the proactive disclosure front – which the government itself cited as a goal – technology integration through portals and digital platforms could reduce the volume of individual RTI applications without touching the independence of the Commissions.

None of these reforms require making commissioners vulnerable to government pressure. An RTI mechanism that is genuinely effective does not need fewer watchdogs – it needs better-resourced, more independent, and more diverse ones.

What do you think? If the independence of Information Commissioners is directly tied to the quality of RTI adjudication, what structural guarantees would you consider non-negotiable in any future reform of the Act? And can a government’s commitment to proactive disclosure ever be a credible substitute for a strong, autonomous information commission?

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Table of Contents

What the original RTI Act set out to do 🔗

What the 2019 amendment changed 🔗

The government’s justification: correcting an anomaly 🔗

Why critics say the amendment undermines independence 🔗

The chilling effect on decision-making 🔗

The salary downgrade and institutional prestige 🔗

Federalism concerns 🔗

The Supreme Court’s signal 🔗

Civil society’s response and the broader pattern 🔗

The path forward: what genuine reform would look like 🔗