RTI News & Weekly Updates

Weekly curated digest — DPDP Rules, 2025 updates, fresh CIC / SIC orders, landmark High Court and Supreme Court rulings, blog posts, and practice guides. This page is updated every Monday.

Week of 22 April 2026.

• DPDP Rules 2025 — implementation tracker. The DPDP Act, 2023 came into force on 14 November 2025, substituting Section 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act. First six months of adjudication now show how public authorities are navigating the new text. Read the framework: Section 8(1)(j) framework.

• Supreme Court — SBI v. Ramesh Tyagi (2025). Pre-14-November-2025 RTI applications decided on the old Girish Deshpande three-part test; DPDP substitution is prospective. Read the case.

• Madras HC — Section 20 penalty upheld. Full Rs 25,000 penalty sustained where the PIO gave no reasonable cause for 70-day delay. Case and Section 20 framework.

• CIC — ONDC is a Section 2(h) public authority. Applying Thalappalam, the Commission held that the Open Network for Digital Commerce, though a Section 8 company, is substantially government-financed and within §2(h)(d)(i). Case.

• Delhi HC — Faceless assessment anonymity. Officer-name anonymity preserved; system-level aggregate data disclosable under §4(1)(b). Case.

• RTI Assistant — unified research + draft + First Appeal + Second Appeal tool with an AI backend.
• Hindi flagship pages — हिंदी होम, 25 सवाल, आवेदन गाइड, RTI अधिनियम हिंदी.
• Floating chatbot — a chat icon on every page; ask any RTI question and get a direct answer with the right wiki page linked.

Archive below. Scroll down for older digests.

• Corpus grew to 397 case laws. 100 new rulings added across three batches spanning SIC under-covered states, tribunal rulings (CAT, AFT, NCDRC), and North-East HCs.
• Landmark SC 2025 added — Common Cause v. Union of India on post-Electoral-Bonds political-party donations; back to transparent §4(1)(b) + RPA §29C regime.
• Section 20 framework live — full explainer with show-cause procedure and the disciplinary path.

• Section 4(1)(b) framework page — the 17 categories of proactive disclosure with a self-audit checklist and citizen enforcement playbook.
• Section 22 — Overriding Effect — dedicated explainer on how RTI trumps OSA 1923 and state secrecy laws. State of Karnataka v. Nagesh B. (SC 2024) anchor.

• Section 24 — exempt organisations framework — CBI, IB, R&AW, NTRO; the corruption / human-rights proviso. Director, IB v. Sanjiv Chaturvedi (SC 2019).
• LegalCase JSON-LD — structured Schema.org data now on all 397 case pages — Google rich-results eligible.

Spotted a fresh CIC / SIC order, a HC / SC judgment, or a policy development worth the digest? Email admin@bighelpers.in with subject “RTI News tip” and a link. Credit if used.

• Full change log
• Case law database (397)
• Forum — community discussions
• Blog archive
• RTI Assistant

Last updated: 22 April 2026. Updated Mondays.