DPDP Act does not ‘dilute’ RTI Act, A-G says in opinion

Attorney-General for India R. Venkataramani said in a written opinion that the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 did not “dilute” the Right to Information Act, 2005, a government source said.

Civil society groups and transparency advocates have argued that the Act’s amendment of Section 8(1)(j), turning a partial exemption for government bodies to turn over “personal” information into a total exemption, undermined transparency.

However, Mr. Venkataramani said that a different part of the RTI Act, which had not been amended, would allow government bodies to disclose such personal information in response to RTI requests. “Section 8(2) of the RTI Act, 2005 mandates disclosure of exempted information whenever public interest outweighs harm,” the opinion said. Mr. Venkataramani declined to confirm authorship of the opinion when contacted by The Hindu, saying he did not respond to media queries.

“There is no dilution of accountability and transparency due to [the] DPDP Act. It only provides a legal framework to ensure balance between privacy and transparency, as mandated by the Supreme Court in the Puttaswamy case judgment.”

The Union government, which notified the RTI amendment in November 2025, even as other parts of the DPDP Act were given a 12-18 month implementation timeline, has made a similar argument. Section 8(1) of the RTI Act lists out exemptions where “there shall be no obligation to give any citizen” information in response to a request.

The earlier language of Section 8(1)(j) exempted from providing “information which relates to personal information the disclosure of which has no relationship to any public activity or interest, or which would cause unwarranted invasion of the privacy of the individual unless the Central Public Information Officer or the State Public Information Officer or the appellate authority, as the case may be, is satisfied that the larger public interest justifies the disclosure of such information,” with a proviso that information that cannot be denied to Parliament cannot be denied to citizens.

That proviso, along with all words after “personal information,” were deleted, elicited strong condemnation from transparency activists, who had for years pushed back against the amendment’s implementation.