How to File an RTI in Karnataka for Ten Rupees and Actually Get an Answer

“An RTI is not a complaint and it is not a request. It is a legal demand for information, and the officer on the other end has a statutory deadline.”

• On why RTIs work when emails do not

I have watched an RTI do in thirty days what six months of polite follow up could not. A stalled Khata transfer, an unexplained water connection delay, a road that was funded and never built. The mechanism is not magic, but it changes the nature of the interaction, because an email can be ignored without consequence and an RTI cannot.

The Right to Information Act, 2005 gives every citizen the right to seek information from public authorities, with a fee commonly set at ten rupees and a statutory response period of thirty days. Karnataka runs its own state RTI portal alongside the central one, and which portal you use depends on whether the authority you are asking is a state body or a central one.

The hard part is not the filing. It is the wording. An RTI that asks a question gets a refusal. An RTI that asks for records gets records. This guide covers the whole process: who to address, how to word it, the fee, the timeline, what the exemptions actually cover, and the two stage appeal process for when you get nothing.

What Can I Actually Ask for Under RTI?

Records held by a public authority. Files, documents, notings, correspondence, registers, contracts, inspection reports and data, in whatever form they exist.

The Act gives access to information that is held, not to answers that have to be composed. This is the distinction that decides whether your application succeeds. If you ask why the road was not built, the officer can lawfully decline because you have asked for an opinion. If you ask for the sanction order, the tender documents, the work completion certificates and the file notings relating to the work, those are records and they must be produced or the refusal must be justified under a specific exemption.

• The file, in full. The single most useful thing to ask for. A file contains the correspondence, the notings and the decisions in sequence, and it tells you the story better than any answer would.
• Noting sheets. The internal record of who said what as a decision moved through the office. Frequently the most revealing document in any file.
• Correspondence on a subject. Letters in and out on a defined matter between defined dates.
• Status and dates on your own application. Date of receipt, current stage, name and designation of the officer holding it, and the reason for any delay as recorded on the file.
• Sanction orders, tenders and work records. For any public work. Sanction, contract, measurement books, completion certificates and payments made.
• Inspection and complaint records. Where you have complained before, the record of what was done with the complaint.
• Rules, guidelines and circulars. Often the quickest way to find out what a department is actually required to do, when its website does not say.

“Never ask why. Ask for the document that would contain the why, and read the answer yourself.”

• On the drafting rule that matters most

Which Portal Do I File On?

The Karnataka RTI portal for state departments and city bodies, and the central RTI portal for central government ministries and their offices. Filing on the wrong one wastes time.

State bodies include the Revenue Department, the state police, the transport department, state utilities and the city corporation structures. Central bodies include the passport office, central ministries, nationalised banks in some respects and central regulatory authorities. If you are not sure, look at who issued the document or who runs the scheme you are asking about.

A misdirected RTI is supposed to be transferred to the correct authority under the Act, which does happen, but it costs time you did not need to lose. Thirty seconds of checking beats five weeks of transfer.

Who Do I Address the Application To?

The Public Information Officer, usually written as PIO, of the specific public authority holding the information. Every public authority is required to designate one.

Most departments publish the PIO's name and contact on their website, frequently under an RTI or disclosure section. Where you cannot find it, addressing the application to the Public Information Officer of the named authority is sufficient. You do not need the officer's name to file a valid application.

Be specific about which authority. An RTI to a broad department about a matter handled by one of its offices is more likely to be transferred than answered. Name the office, and where you know it, the specific section.

How Do I Word the Application?

Numbered, specific, record focused, and confined to one subject. The most common reason for a useless reply is an application that was vague or sprawling.

• Number every point. A numbered list of requests forces a point by point reply and makes an incomplete answer visible immediately. A paragraph of prose invites a paragraph of nothing.
• Define the period. Between named dates. Without a period, a large request can be declined as disproportionate and a small one can be answered with the wrong year.
• Name the document you want. The sanction order, the noting sheet, the inspection report. If you do not know what a document is called, describe it and add the words or equivalent record.
• Ask for certified copies. The Act provides for certified copies, which carry more weight if you later need to rely on them.
• Keep one subject per application. Two subjects in one RTI gives an officer an easy route to a partial answer. Two applications, twenty rupees, two thirty day clocks running in parallel.
• Do not argue in the application. It is a request for records, not a complaint. Grievance framing invites a response about the grievance rather than the records.
• Ask for the officer's name and designation. Where a delay is the subject, asking who currently holds the file and since when is both a legitimate request and remarkably effective.

What Does It Cost?

The application fee is commonly ten rupees, with applicants below the poverty line exempt on producing proof. Beyond a limited number of free pages, a per page charge applies for copies.

The additional fee is intimated to you by the PIO, and the thirty day clock is affected by the intimation, so respond to a fee demand promptly. Where a large volume of records is involved, you may be offered inspection of the file rather than copies, which is often genuinely more useful and usually cheaper.

Confirm the current fee on the portal before filing, since amounts and payment routes are revised from time to time.

How Long Do They Have to Reply?

Thirty days from receipt of the application. Where the information concerns the life or liberty of a person, forty eight hours.

The thirty day period is a statutory obligation rather than a target, and a failure to reply within it is a deemed refusal, which is what gives you the right to appeal. Where the application is transferred to another authority, the period runs accordingly, and where additional fees are demanded, the time taken for that intimation is accounted for.

Diary the deadline the day you file. A great many RTIs die because the applicant simply forgot to appeal when nothing arrived.

“Silence is a refusal. The day the thirty days run out, you have a right of appeal, and using it is the whole point of the mechanism.”

• On what to do when nothing arrives

What Can They Refuse to Give Me?

The Act contains specific exemptions, principally in Section 8, covering matters such as national security, personal information with no public interest, commercial confidence, information held in a fiduciary relationship and matters under investigation in defined circumstances.

A refusal must cite the specific exemption relied on. A refusal that simply declines, or that cites an exemption with no explanation of how it applies, is exactly the sort of thing an appeal is for. The burden of justifying a refusal sits with the public authority, not with you.

Where personal information is refused, note that information about a public official's official acts is generally a different matter from information about a private individual, and public interest arguments exist. If a refusal on personal information grounds seems to be shielding an official decision rather than a private person, that is worth appealing.

How Do the Appeals Work?

Two stages. A first appeal to the First Appellate Authority within the same public authority, and a second appeal to the Karnataka Information Commission.

• First appeal, within 30 days. To the First Appellate Authority of the same public authority, which is a designated officer senior to the PIO. File within thirty days of receiving the reply, or of the deadline passing with no reply.
• State what is wrong, briefly. No reply received, incomplete reply, or a refusal with no proper justification. Attach the original application and anything you received.
• Keep it factual. Dates, what was asked, what arrived. An appeal is decided on whether the Act was complied with, not on how aggrieved you are.
• Second appeal, within 90 days. To the Karnataka Information Commission, within ninety days of the first appellate decision or of the date it should have been given.
• The Commission can order disclosure. And can impose penalties on a PIO for unreasonable refusal or delay, which is why the appeal stage produces results that the original application sometimes does not.
• Hearings happen. Second appeals commonly involve a hearing. Attend if you can, take your papers in order, and keep the submission short.

What Makes an RTI Actually Work?

Specificity, a single subject, record focused wording, and the discipline to appeal on the thirty first day. Most failed RTIs fail on one of those four.

The other thing worth saying is that an RTI is often most effective before it is answered. A stalled file has a habit of moving once somebody has to account for where it has been sitting and who has been holding it. That is not the purpose of the Act, but it is a reliable side effect, and for a citizen dealing with an unresponsive office it is frequently the fastest route to a result.

This guide is general information and not legal advice. Fees, portals, procedures and the application of exemptions change and are interpreted case by case, so verify the current position on the official portals and take legal advice where a matter is significant. Same city, new stories, always.

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