The ₹10 question: how the RTI Act lets any citizen ask the government why
Ten rupees. Under the Right to Information Rules, 2012, that is the application fee for putting a question to any Central Government public authority. It is not a tax. It is the price of switching on a legal duty for the state to answer a citizen.
The Right to Information Act, 2005 provides a low-cost, time-bound mechanism for any Indian citizen to demand accountability. It fundamentally alters the relationship between the state and the individual from one of permission to one of enforceable right.
Filing a written request creates a legal duty
Under Section 3 of the Act, all citizens possess the right to information. To exercise this, a person makes a request in writing or through electronic means to a Public Information Officer or to an Assistant Public Information Officer. The application may be submitted in English, Hindi, or the official language of the area.
The statute accounts for practical accessibility. If a request cannot be made in writing, the officer must render all reasonable assistance to reduce an oral request to writing. The duty of the public authority to respond is a strict statutory mandate.
Low costs remove barriers to entry
For Central Government public authorities, the Right to Information Rules, 2012 set the application fee at rupees ten. For state public authorities, the fee is determined by the state government's own rules, because the Act empowers the appropriate Government to make rules on the fee.
The legislation ensures that poverty does not silence a citizen. A person below the poverty line pays no application fee if a copy of the certificate issued by the appropriate Government is submitted with the application, and the Act itself dictates that no such fee shall be charged from persons below the poverty line as determined by the appropriate Government.
Strict timelines prevent administrative silence
The Public Information Officer must, as expeditiously as possible and in any case within thirty days of receiving the request, either provide the information on payment of the prescribed fee or reject the request on the grounds outlined in Sections 8 and 9. Where the information sought concerns the life or liberty of a person, it must be provided within forty-eight hours.
The law treats silence as an answer. If the officer fails to decide within the time limit, the request is deemed to have been refused. Where a public authority fails to comply with these statutory time limits, the information must be provided free of charge.
Age does not limit the right to know
The text of the Act grants the right to information to citizens and permits any person who desires information to make a request under Sections 3 and 6(1). Neither provision, nor any other rule on applicants, sets a minimum age requirement.
Not every official has read it that way. In one reported case, a Uttar Pradesh State Information Commissioner rejected a nine-year-old's application as being from a minor, but the Chief Information Commissioner disagreed. The Chief Information Commissioner of the time was reported by DNA India as stating that there is no restriction of age limit and the Act allows any citizen of India to file the application.
Transparency faces new legal hurdles
Legislative changes have altered the boundaries of disclosure. The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 substituted clause (j) of Section 8(1) of the RTI Act with the words “information which relates to personal information”. This amendment was brought into force in November 2025, when the Central Government notified the commencement of parts of the DPDP Act along with the Digital Personal Data Protection Rules, 2025.
The interaction between data privacy and the right to know is now subject to intense legal dispute. On 16 February 2026, the Supreme Court issued notice on writ petitions challenging Section 44(3) of the DPDP Act, filed by RTI activist Venkatesh Nayak, The Reporters Collective Trust with journalist Nitin Sethi, and the National Campaign for People's Right to Information, in The Reporters Collective Trust v. Union of India. The Court declined to stay the provision and referred the questions to a larger bench.
Using the law for oversight
Filing a request does not require legal expertise. For Central Government public authorities, the rules state that an application should ordinarily not contain more than five hundred words, though no application is to be rejected solely because it exceeds five hundred words.
An applicant is not required to give any reason for requesting the information or any other personal details except those necessary for contacting the applicant. The focus remains strictly on public data, not the personal motive of the applicant.
If a decision is not received within the Section 7 time limit, or if you are aggrieved by the officer's decision, you may within thirty days appeal to an officer senior in rank to the Public Information Officer in the same public authority for a first appeal under Section 19(1). A second appeal lies within ninety days from the date the decision should have been made or was actually received, to the Central Information Commission or the State Information Commission under Section 19(3).
The RTI Act remains an indispensable tool for public oversight. It transforms the citizen from a passive subject into an active participant in governance, proving that a ten-rupee central application fee is a remarkably small price for the power to demand answers.