I. Introduction: When the Right to Know Meets a Wall
In the largest democracy in the world, requesting information should have been a right, not a risk. The RTI Act of 2005 was promising and showed signs of pulling apart the bureaucratic curtain and shedding light to allow good civic action. Almost twenty years later, however, that promise is frayed. It is not simply that it will be delayed or ignored; secrecy, technology, and power now work together to obscure more than they will enlighten. Algorithms now increasingly determine vital outcomes while commissions to release information are being dismantled, and whistleblowers are again being hurt and intimidated. The outcome is a dollop of less transparency. To better understand what is at stake, we need to take into account the life experience of digital citizens, RTI applicants, and truth-tellers that extends beyond the letter of the law.
II. The RTI Act: From Transformational Tool to Tamed Tiger
Originally hailed as groundbreaking, the RTI Act was enacted in 2005. For a nation formerly under colonial secrecy policies, it granted residents the ability to ask questions about the rationing of road maintenance. RTI evolved into a tool for empowerment and survival for the underprivileged, the disenfranchised, and the marginalised.
But over time, fissures have grown. More than 3,00,000 appeals are now waiting nationwide. For months, many Information Commissions have been non-functional or understaffed, thereby restricting the right of appeal.
A major setback came in 2019 when the central government modified the Act to eliminate the fixed tenure and salaries for Information Commissioners. This threatened their autonomy, transforming a formerly free office into a possible extension of executive will.
The philosophical change is dramatic: a regulation designed to distribute power is now under ever more danger of being used to gather it.
III. Puttaswamy and the Fragile Balance: Privacy vs. Transparency
With the 2017 Supreme Court ruling in Justice K. S. Puttaswamy (Retd. ) v. Union of India, Indian constitutional law achieves a milestone. Under Article 21, it affirmed that privacy is a basic right. But it also emphasised that, particularly about the public’s entitlement to knowledge, privacy is not absolute. The Court acknowledged that democratic accountability required government openness. It warned against abusing “privacy” as a catch-all defence for state operations’ secrecy. Still, the equilibrium Puttaswamy envisioned on the ground is typically lopsided. Privacy is frequently employed to shield the government from criticism rather than to protect people.
IV. Algorithms as New Firewalls: The Digital Black Box
The digital revolution of India has introduced opaque, uncontrolled, and hard-to-challenge algorithmic control. Without significant oversight, today’s facial recognition systems, Aadhaar-linked welfare programs, and predictive policing tools run.
Exemptions are swiftly invoked when activists submit RTIs to demand openness around these systems, particularly Section 8(1)(d), commercial confidence, and 8(1)(j), personal information. The result: shielded from public scrutiny inside “black boxes,” decisions impacting millions are hidden.
Comparative Note: Global Standards on Algorithmic Opacity
Compare this with the GDPR of the European Union, which includes a “right to explanation” for people affected by algorithmic choices. Bills such as the Algorithmic Accountability Act demand frequent audits of automated systems in high-stakes settings, including housing, finance, and employment in the United States.
Particularly when public comes to public activities, Canada and Australia also require algorithmic impact assessments and transparency disclosures. In New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and Australia, any organisation performing public functions or receiving significant public funds is typically brought under freedom of information legislation, regardless of its legal form; by contrast, India increasingly outsources essential services to private entities and NGOs that operate outside the RTI’s reach
Given Puttaswamy, India is constitutionally obligated to make sure that automated administration is transparent. Still, we lag in cultural acceptance of the citizen’s right to algorithmic responsibility as well as legislative protections.
V. Electoral Bonds and the Algorithm of Secrecy in Politics
Launched in 2018, the Electoral Bonds Scheme masked political contributions in legally approved anonymity. Presented as a weapon against black money, it produced a parallel system, circumventing people’s right to know who supports their chosen leaders.
Repeated RTIs looking for donor information were stonewalled. The government referenced bank confidentiality and “national interest,” a pattern of citing vast exclusions without an appropriate rationale.
The Supreme Court finally decided the plan was unconstitutional in 2024, Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) v. Union of India. It broke the citizen’s right to knowledge, a fundamental element of democratic engagement.
This episode teaches us something: left judicial pushback, the RTI framework by itself would have failed to reveal this secrecy algorithm.
VI. The Lethal Price of Openness
Originally a constitutional pledge, the RTI Act evolved as a democratic sword crafted from decades of civil strife. Neglect, digital complexity, and legal contortion have dulled that sword today rather than repeal.
This is not only a bureaucratic concern. It is about who has the power, who questions it, and who gains from silence.
The right to know must be defended as fiercely as any other right if India is to remain a democracy in both form and substance. It cannot transform into a privilege that only the strong or the small few can access. It must be a shield held by every citizen, ready to ask.
Behind every curtain drawn too tight lies a narrative waiting to be told and a democracy waiting to be restored.
VII. Opacity by Design: The PM CARES Fund and Institutional Blind Spots
The PM CARES Fund best exemplifies institutional transparency. It has been determined outside the purview of RTI, even though it is chaired by the Prime Minister and receives substantial public funds, including from government agencies.
Why? Because, under Section 2(h) of the Act, it is supposedly not a “public authority.”
This legal technicality deprives people of their right to learn how their money was spent during a national emergency. It establishes a risky precedent: state-supported organisations can, by smart structuring, bypass transparency.
VIII. Institutional Apathy and Judicial Abdication
The crisis at RTI is one of systematic inertia as well as of executive opposition.
Many Information Commissions lack heads; judicial interference is infrequent. Often deferring to general exceptions like “national interest,” courts dilute the strong criteria they stated in Puttaswamy and ADR.
The RTI will become symbolic unless judicial logic is clear and steady, and solid legislative support for digital governance openness exists. To file an RTI today is to think more about taking a risk than taking a right. Citizens’ voices are silenced by fear and harassment. As Puttaswamy highlights, liberty needs information, but the weight of liberty is heavy when there is no way to put it into practice.
IX. Comparative Models: What Democracies Do Right
There is growing global consensus around three main tenets: transparency should track public money and power rather than legal formalism; there should never be an unaccountable automated decision-making process, particularly in welfare and policing; and whistleblower protections must be genuine, enforceable, and not vestigial. In certain countries, like Sweden and Norway, transparency has traditionally penetrated the public culture; in others, such as South Africa (PAIA) and Mexico (INAI), we have seen how truly independent and strong information commissions can become an object of public confidence. Disclosure is the norm in these systems rather than an exception that may be enforced at the whim of an official. These choices reflect more fundamental constitutional principles that put the citizen, not the state, at the centre of governance, rather than only policy ones.
X. The Path Forward: Six Urgent Reforms
1. To reinstate the tenure system and guarantee Information Commissioner appointments to revamp the independence.
2. Use RTI on everybody who receives heavy taxpayer money or carries out public functions.
3. Make all automated systems used by the governments contestable and explainable.
4. To protect whistleblowers, enable the 2014 Act with due enforcement and accompaniment and with the assurance of their anonymity.
5. Courts ought to clarify when secrecy is fair and guarantee that public interest always outweighs the interest of secrecy.
6. Insert disclosure provisions into all huge public-private contracts and major grant funds.
XI. Conclusion: The Right to Know, the Fight to Keep It
Originally a constitutional pledge, the RTI Act evolved as a democratic sword crafted from decades of civil strife. Neglect, digital complexity, and legal contortion have dulled that sword today rather than repeal.
This is not only a bureaucratic concern. It is about who has the power, who questions it, and who gains from silence.
The right to know must be defended as fiercely as any other right if India is to remain a democracy in both form and substance. It cannot transform into a privilege that only the strong or the small few can access. It must be a shield held by every citizen, ready to ask.
Behind every curtain drawn too tight lies a narrative waiting to be told and a democracy waiting to be restored.
(This post has been authored by Charvi Rana a, 3rd-year B.A., LL.B. (Hons.) student at O.P. Jindal Global University)
CITE AS: Charvi Rana, ‘Behind the Curtain: RTI, Algorithms, and the Dangerous Cost of Secrecy in India’ (The Contemporary Law Forum, 6 February 2026) <https://tclf.in/2026/02/06/behind-the-curtain-rti-algorithms-and-the-dangerous-cost-of-secrecy-in-india/> date of access.