What RTI actually is
The Right to Information Act, 2005 gives every Indian citizen the legal right to ask a government body for information it holds — and get a reply within a fixed time, or a valid reason why not.
It isn't a request for a favour. It's a legal demand, backed by a deadline and a penalty on the officer if they ignore it.
What you can ask for
- Copies of documents, orders, and records
- Inspection of files
- Certified samples of material
- Information held in any form — paper, electronic, even in diagrams
What you generally can't get
- Information that would harm national security or ongoing investigations
- Purely personal information about a third party with no public interest
- Cabinet papers before a final decision is made
Almost everything else — how public money was spent, why your application is stuck, what a scheme actually requires — is fair game.