Overview

• Congress leaders, including Mallikarjun Kharge and Jairam Ramesh, accused the Centre of eroding RTI through the 2019 amendments that put commissioners’ tenure and pay under executive control.
• The Digital Personal Data Protection Act of 2023 is cited as expanding ‘personal information’ exemptions, which critics warn could block disclosures previously released in the public interest.
• Implementation gaps persist: the Central Information Commission is working with two commissioners and no chief since September 2025, with nationwide backlogs reported over 4 lakh and CIC pendency cited around 23,000 to 26,800 cases.
• The party linked the pushback to RTI disclosures that challenged official claims, and demanded reversing the 2019 changes, reviewing DPDP provisions, filling vacancies, publishing performance data, and protecting whistleblowers and RTI users.
• A BJP response rejected the allegations as political, asserting that digitisation has strengthened transparency and that the RTI framework continues to function, while a Supreme Court challenge to the 2019 amendments remains pending.