Harmonizing Privacy and Accountability (RTI vs DPDP)

This editorial is based on “Privacy and transparency: On the RTI Act amendment, petitions” which was published in The Hindu on 20/02/2026. This editorial examines the constitutional tension between the Right to Information and the new Data Protection regime, highlighting how legislative amendments may weaken state accountability.

For Prelims: RTI Act, ULPIN, National Judicial Data Grid, e-Sankhyiki, DPDP Act

For Mains: Measures taken to enhance transparency framework, key issues in transparency framework, measures needed to strengthen the framework.

The recent decision of the Supreme Court of India to examine amendments diluting the Right to Information Act has revived concerns over shrinking transparency in governance. In a constitutional democracy, information is the currency of accountability. When the State accumulates data power without reciprocal public access, governance risks sliding into opacity. Transparency thus remains central to trust, participation, and responsive administration.

What are the Key Measures India has Taken to Enhance Transparency? 

• Digital Welfare Disintermediation (DBT): The Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) framework mitigates systemic leakages by fundamentally re-engineering the welfare state into a disintermediated, targeted delivery matrix.
  • By leveraging the JAM trinity (Jan Dhan, Aadhaar, Mobile), the government has dismantled rent-seeking middleman networks that historically plagued subsidy distribution.
  • This targeted digital architecture ensures precise beneficiary mapping and establishes an auditable, real-time fiscal trail that reinforces absolute state accountability.
  • In FY 2025-26, cumulative DBT transfers hit a record ₹5.62 lakh crore across 327 active schemes spanning 56 ministries.
    • Consequently, this systemic transparency has generated estimated cumulative savings of ₹4.31 lakh crore as of February 2026 by systematically weeding out ghost beneficiaries.
• Algorithmic Public Procurement : The Government e-Marketplace (GeM) democratizes public procurement by dismantling opaque, monopolistic vendor ecosystems through a centralized, algorithmic open-source platform.It embeds structural transparency by utilizing AI-driven anomaly detection and standardized pricing mechanisms, ensuring equal opportunity for marginalized MSMEs.
  • This digital shift eradicates discretionary tender allocations and bureaucratic favoritism, fostering a competitive, merit-based economy while optimizing exchequer costs.
  • For instance, by late 2025, GeM surpassed a historic cumulative Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) of ₹15 lakh crore, integrating millions of micro-sellers into the formal economy.
• Data-Driven Tax Administration : The transition to a Faceless Tax Assessment  regime revolutionizes fiscal governance by deliberately severing the physical interface between the taxpayer and the assessing officer. By utilizing dynamic jurisdiction, data analytics, and automated random case allocation, the system effectively neutralizes territorial biases and subjective extortion.
  • This structural reform enforces an objective, team-based review mechanism that drastically reduces bureaucratic harassment and incentivizes voluntary citizen compliance.
  • Reflecting this improved compliance, gross direct tax collections surged to a provisional ₹27.02 lakh crore in FY 2024-25, doubling within a five-year span.
  • Furthermore, over 9.19 crore Income Tax Returns were filed in this period, heavily supported by transparent, pre-filled Annual Information Statements (AIS).
• Electoral Finance Accountability: The Supreme Court's invalidation of the Electoral Bonds scheme marks a watershed constitutional moment in restoring democratic equity and curbing opaque corporate hegemony.The apex court decisively ruled that absolute donor anonymity fundamentally violates a citizen's intrinsic Right to Information protected under Article 19(1)(a).
  • By dismantling this legal shroud, the judicial mandate compels the state machinery to realign political finance with the principles of anti-cronyism and an informed electorate.
  • Following the landmark 2024 judgment (Association for Democratic Reforms v. Union of India), the State Bank of India was forced to digitally disclose all historical bond purchase data to the Election Commission for immediate public scrutiny.
• Proactive Grassroots Disclosure: State-level Jan Soochna (Public Information) Portals decentralize governance by shifting the paradigm from reactive RTI petitions to proactive, suo-motu data disclosures. These open-data dashboards mandate real-time public visibility into local expenditures, audit reports, and welfare beneficiary lists directly down to the village panchayat level.
  • This localized transparency architecture empowers the poorest citizens to conduct continuous social audits, effectively neutralizing systemic information asymmetry at the grassroots.
  • For example, the pioneering Rajasthan Jan Soochna portal currently publishes granular, real-time data across more than 200 public schemes from over 115 government departments.
• Judicial Transparency via e-Courts Phase III: The e-Courts Mission Mode Project (Phase III) fundamentally transitions the judiciary from an opaque, paper-dependent silo into a digitally searchable, "Open Justice" ecosystem. By institutionalizing live-streaming and universalizing e-filing, it eliminates the "black box" of courtroom proceedings and reduces the information gap between the legal elite and common litigants.
  • This reform enforces systemic accountability by making case lifecycles, orders, and judge-wise performance metrics accessible to the public in real-time.
  • As of December 2025, the National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG) tracks over 25 crore cases, while the e-Courts portal records a massive 35 lakh daily hits.
    • This digital infrastructure has enabled the disposal of 8.96 crore traffic challans through 29 Virtual Courts, collecting over ₹895 crore in revenue with zero human intervention.
• Geospatial Clarity & Land Transparency (ULPIN & NAKSHA): The implementation of Bhu-Aadhaar (ULPIN) and the NAKSHA project dismantles the legacy of "benami" transactions and opaque land titles through high-precision geospatial mapping. By assigning a 14-digit alphanumeric ID to every land parcel, the state creates a "Single Version of Truth" that prevents fraudulent multiple-sales and bureaucratic tampering of records.
  • This transparency acts as a catalyst for financial inclusion, allowing marginalized farmers to use verifiable digital titles as collateral for institutional credit without middleman exploitation.
  • For instance, by early 2026, ULPIN has been assigned to over 36 crore land parcels, and land record computerization has achieved 97.27% saturation across Indian villages.
  • In urban areas, the NAKSHA pilot across 157 cities is expected to increase municipal property tax compliance by 25-40% through transparent, drone-based boundary demarcation.
• Modernization of National Statistical Systems: India is undergoing a structural overhaul of its official data architecture to ensure that national indicators (GDP, CPI, IIP) are immune to methodological opacity and reflect real-world economic shifts. The launch of the e-Sankhyiki portal and the revamped Microdata Portal enforces "Transparency by Design," allowing researchers and citizens to scrutinize the raw data behind government claims.
  • By rebasing economic indices to 2022-23 and introducing monthly labor indicators (PLFS) from 2025, the state is providing more granular, frequent, and honest snapshots of the informal economy.
  • Since January 2025, the Microdata Portal has recorded over 88 lakh hits, demonstrating a high public appetite for verifiable official statistics.
    • This move toward "Data Democratization" ensures that policy debates are grounded in evidence rather than administrative discretion or political narrative.
• Institutionalized Social Audits in Education & Welfare: The shift toward Mandatory Social Audits transforms transparency from a top-down reporting requirement into a bottom-up, community-led verification of public expenditure.This model empowers local stakeholders (parents, workers, and Gram Sabhas) to physically verify if the funds allocated for school infrastructure or rural wages match the ground reality.
  • By video-recording proceedings and uploading Action Taken Reports (ATRs) online, the process creates a public "shame-and-fame" mechanism that deters local-level corruption.
  • For instance, in 2025, Uttar Pradesh launched a massive plan to socially audit 1.33 lakh government schools, involving over 1.6 lakh community facilitators to evaluate resource delivery.
  • Furthermore, by 2026, many states have strictly separated Social Audit Units from implementing agencies to eliminate "conflicts of interest," as seen in recent High Court mandates in Kerala.

What are the Key Issues Associated with India’s Transparency Framework ?

• Dilution of RTI via DPDP Act (Loss of "Public Interest Override"): The DPDP Act  structurally weakens the RTI framework by amending Section 8(1)(j) and completely removing the "public interest override" that previously permitted access to public officials' data. 
  
  • By imposing a blanket statutory exemption on all "personal information," it creates an impenetrable legal shield allowing bureaucrats to hide assets, credentials, and disciplinary records. 
  • Consequently, the delicate democratic balance has tilted heavily toward administrative opacity, prioritizing state protection over citizen empowerment.
• Severe Backlogs and Institutional Paralysis in Information Commissions: The nation's transparency infrastructure is practically suffocating under severe understaffing, transforming a fast-track statutory redressal mechanism into a prolonged bureaucratic nightmare. 
  • Chronic delays in appointing Information Commissioners violate legislative mandates and erode the deterrent effect of the RTI, as delayed information loses its actionable relevance. This systemic tendency of governments to leave transparency watchdogs under-resourced signals a deliberate strategy to blunt grassroots democratic oversight. 
  • As of January 2026, the Central Information Commission alone struggles with a crippling backlog of over 32,200 pending cases, with projected clearance times hitting 40 months. 
  • Furthermore, a late 2024 Supreme Court review noted that state commissions collectively harbor a staggering 4.1 lakh pending appeals (as per the "Report Card" by the Satark Nagrik Sangathan ), paralyzing the citizen's right to know. 
• Opacity in Corporate Political Funding: While the Supreme Court's landmark 2024 annulment of the Electoral Bonds scheme was a constitutional victory, massive corporate funding continues to flow through alternative, semi-opaque channels like "Electoral Trusts." These trusts, despite requiring nominal disclosures to the Election Commission, effectively obscure the direct one-to-one nexus between a specific corporate donor and specific state policy favors. 
  • This persistent financial asymmetry undermines democratic equity, leaving independent candidates financially paralyzed while dominant political parties consolidate power through deep-pocketed conglomerates. 
  • Recent 2025 data reveals that the Progressive Electoral Trust, backed by major corporate groups, channeled over $110 million ahead of the general elections. Of this amount, approximately 82% was received by a single ruling party, drawing attention to the concentration of funding.
• Dismal Proactive Disclosure and Section 4 Non-Compliance: The foundational philosophy of the RTI Act was to shift the burden of transparency onto the state through mandatory, suo-motu digital disclosures, yet this mandate remains systematically ignored. Instead of maintaining updated open-data dashboards regarding public procurement and administrative decisions, authorities force citizens to file adversarial RTI petitions for routine data. 
  • This bureaucratic stubbornness artificially inflates the burden on Information Commissions, transforming transparency into an exhausting struggle rather than an institutionalized governance standard. Civil society assessments in 2025 reveal that a vast majority of central and state departments continually fail to update their Section 4 manuals online. 
    • Consequently, citizens are forced to weaponize the RTI act simply to track basic welfare scheme delivery, which fundamentally clogs the entire justice delivery system.
• Proposals for "Ministerial Veto" and Deliberative Exemptions: The recent Economic Survey (2025-26) introduced a highly controversial narrative arguing that the current RTI framework hampers bureaucratic efficiency and fuels "idle curiosity." It formally proposes introducing a "Ministerial Veto" and exempting internal deliberative processes (like draft notes and working papers) from any public scrutiny. 
  • If legislated, this would establish an unprecedented culture of state secrecy, allowing the executive to conceal the underlying lobbying influences and policy trade-offs that shape national legislation. Critics vehemently oppose these recommendations, noting there is absolutely no empirical evidence proving civil servants are paralyzed by transparency. 
  • Shielding these "brainstorming notes" directly contradicts the democratic necessity of tracking exactly how and why public money is allocated behind closed doors.
• The "Chilling Effect" on Investigative Journalism: The newly operationalized DPDP Rules aggressively classify investigative journalists as "Data Fiduciaries," legally equating critical news gathering with commercial corporate data processing. 
  • By mandating that reporters obtain explicit consent from the very individuals or corrupt officials they are investigating, the framework makes post-facto validation of independent news reports legally perilous. Without explicit statutory exemptions for journalistic purposes, this regulatory overreach threatens to reduce independent media to mere amplifiers of sanitized government press releases.
  • Non-compliance under this stringent DPDP framework carries crippling financial penalties of up to ₹250 crore for independent media houses. 
    • Furthermore, Section 12 allows individuals to demand immediate data erasure, granting corrupt actors a direct legal mechanism to force journalists to destroy investigative evidence.
• Asymmetric Exemptions for State Surveillance and Instrumentalities: While India’s new digital privacy architecture imposes heavy compliance burdens on private tech enterprises, it carves out vast, unchecked exemptions for "State instrumentalities."
  • The central government retains the arbitrary, unchecked power to exempt its own law enforcement and intelligence agencies from fundamental privacy protocols under the broad guise of national security. 
  • This asymmetric legal structure risks institutionalizing mass digital surveillance, rendering the citizen entirely transparent to the state while the state remains entirely opaque to the citizen. 
  • The Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) warns that these 2025 rules offer absolutely no independent judicial oversight mechanism to audit state data collection. 
    • Consequently, broad government exemptions fundamentally undermine the K.S. Puttaswamy judgment by enabling unchecked and opaque data processing by state agencies.
• Flawed Implementation of Social Audits and Whistleblower Vulnerability: Despite statutory mandates integrating social audits into major welfare schemes, the ground reality suffers from an acute conflict of interest as local implementing agencies often control the audit bodies. 
  • These skewed local power dynamics, heavily compounded by the absence of a robust and fully operational Whistleblowers Protection Act, severely intimidate rural auditors. Without physical and legal safeguards, grassroots transparency activists remain highly vulnerable to targeted violence, rendering the theoretical right to information practically hazardous. 
  • Alarming civil rights data ( Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative) indicates that 67 RTI activists have been murdered since the Act's inception two decades ago. 
    • State governments repeatedly fail to physically separate Social Audit Units from their administrative departments, completely diluting the independent verification of billions in public funds.
• Ambiguous Consent Mechanisms and Digital Literacy Barriers: The newly enforced DPDP Rules (2025) establish "Consent Managers" and place the complex burden of managing digital permissions squarely on ordinary citizens who often lack basic digital literacy. The regulatory language fails to explicitly outlaw deceptive design practices or "dark patterns" that major tech platforms utilize to aggressively extract broad data processing permissions. 
  • As a result, "informed consent" devolves into a mere legal fiction, allowing massive corporations to continue exploiting user data under the strict veneer of statutory compliance. 
  • While the rules mandate clear consent notices within an 18-month phased rollout ending in 2026, the lack of government-prescribed standardized templates leaves massive room for corporate manipulation. 
    • Millions of rural citizens remain highly vulnerable to "consent fatigue," undermining the very privacy protections the DPDP framework claims to guarantee.

What Measures are Needed to Strengthen Transparency Framework in India ?

• Codifying a "Public Interest Test" within the DPDP Framework: The government must introduce a statutory "Harm-Benefit Balancing Test" within the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Rules to restore the primacy of the Right to Information. By explicitly defining categories of "Public-Facing Personal Data" such as assets of public servants, educational credentials of officials, and departmental file notings, the law can prevent the misuse of privacy as a shroud for administrative opacity. 
  • This measure would replace the current absolute exemption with a proportional disclosure regime, ensuring that the "right to be left alone" does not morph into a "right to be unaccountable."
• Institutionalizing "Algorithmic Transparency" and Open-Source Audits: As governance shifts toward AI-driven decision-making in welfare and procurement, India needs a "National Algorithmic Accountability Protocol" to mandate the disclosure of logic behind automated systems. 
  • This involves making the source code and training datasets of critical platforms like the GeM portal and DBT matching engines accessible for third-party "White-Box" audits to detect systemic biases or exclusions. Such a measure ensures that the "Black Box" of technology does not replace the "Red Tape" of bureaucracy, maintaining a clear trail of digital accountability for every automated state action.
• Implementing Decentralized "Information Self-Service" Kiosks: Moving beyond digital portals, the state must establish physical, blockchain-enabled "Information Self-Service Kiosks" at the Panchayat and Block levels to bridge the digital divide for the rural poor. 
  • These kiosks should offer real-time, read-only access to local muster rolls, inventory ledgers, and social audit reports without requiring a formal RTI application or intermediary assistance.
  • By embedding "Transparency by Design" at the grassroots, the framework shifts the burden of information retrieval from the citizen to the infrastructure, fostering an environment of continuous social oversight.
• Strategic Decoupling of Social Audit Units (SAUs): To ensure the integrity of grassroots monitoring, Social Audit Units must be granted complete financial and administrative autonomy, effectively decoupling them from the implementing line departments they are tasked to monitor. 
  • This involves creating a dedicated, non-lapsable "Transparency Fund" managed by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) to pay for auditors’ salaries and logistics. By removing the "power of the purse" from local bureaucrats, SAUs can operate as fearless independent watchdogs, transforming social audits from a ceremonial "box-ticking" exercise into a potent tool for forensic public scrutiny.
• Harmonizing Whistleblower Protection with Digital Safeguards: There is an urgent need to operationalize the Whistleblower Protection Act by integrating it with encrypted, anonymous "Digital Reporting Channels" that protect the identity of insiders through advanced zero-knowledge proofs. 
  • This measure would provide a safe, state-sanctioned alternative to the risky RTI route for exposing high-level corruption, ensuring that the "Source" remains anonymous even to the receiving agency. 
  • Legal immunity for "Good Faith Disclosures" must be strictly enforced to counteract the "chilling effect" created by stringent data protection penalties and potential surveillance overreach.
• Universalizing "Real-Time Fiscal Dashboards" for All Public Projects: The Ministry of Finance should mandate that every public infrastructure project exceeding a certain threshold be mapped onto a "Live Project Transparency Dashboard" using Geospatial (GIS) and IoT sensors. 
  • These dashboards would display real-time physical progress, contractor payment cycles, and quality-test certificates alongside the original tender specifications. 
  • Such granular, proactive disclosure would allow the public and civil society to track the conversion of tax rupees into physical assets, making "leakages" visible and rectifiable before the project reaches completion.
• Creating a "Legislative Transparency Index" (LTI): To enhance the quality of democracy, India should adopt a "Legislative Transparency Index" that tracks the pre-legislative consultation process, the frequency of parliamentary committee referrals, and the disclosure of lobbying influences. 
  • This measure would require all draft bills to be accompanied by a "Consultation Summary Report" detailing which stakeholder inputs were accepted or rejected and why. 
  • By formalizing the "Right to Know" during the law-making phase, the state can mitigate the risk of "Captured Policy" and ensure that laws are the product of deliberative consensus rather than opaque executive fiat.
• Professionalizing the Information Commission Cadre: To eliminate institutional paralysis, the selection process for Information Commissioners should be diversified to include a mandatory quota for data scientists, legal scholars, and civil society veterans, rather than solely relying on retired bureaucrats. \
  • This "Multi-Disciplinary Bench" would be better equipped to adjudicate complex modern disputes involving data privacy, trade secrets, and emerging technologies. 
  • Furthermore, a "Deemed Vacancy" rule should be implemented, where new appointments must be finalized six months before a sitting commissioner retires, ensuring that the transparency machinery never grinds to a halt due to administrative lethargy.
• Judicial "Open Data" Mandate and Performance Tracking: The judiciary must lead by example by mandating a "Standardized Open Data Protocol" across all tiers of courts, ensuring that case data is not just "digitized" but "machine-readable" for large-scale analysis. 
  • This involves publishing granular metrics on case pendency per judge, reasons for adjournments, and historical sentencing patterns to identify bottlenecks and biases within the legal system. 
  • By making the "Process of Justice" as transparent as the "Judgment of Justice," the judiciary can rebuild public trust and provide the data-driven evidence needed for systemic legal reforms.

Conclusion:

The future of Indian democracy hinges on reconciling the citizen's right to privacy with the mandatory transparency required for state accountability. While digital tools have revolutionized service delivery, the legislative dilution of the RTI Act risks creating a permanent information asymmetry that favors the executive. Strengthening transparency now requires a shift from reactive disclosures to an institutionalized, "open-by-default" governance architecture that protects the individual without shielding the institution.

Drishti Mains Question

"Transparency is the currency of accountability in a constitutional democracy." In light of the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act 2023, critically analyze the potential impact on the Right to Information (RTI) framework in India.

FAQs

1. How does the DPDP Act affect the RTI Act?
It removes the "public interest override" in Section 8(1)(j), creating a blanket ban on sharing any "personal information" of officials.

2. What is the "Legitimate Uses" paradox?
It refers to the state being allowed to process citizen data without consent while citizens are denied access to official data under privacy pretexts.

3. What is ULPIN?
The Unique Land Parcel Identification Number is a 14-digit alphanumeric ID acting as "Bhu-Aadhaar" for transparent land records.

4. Why are journalists concerned about the DPDP Act?
They are classified as "Data Fiduciaries," making investigative reporting legally risky due to strict consent requirements and high fines.

5. What is a Social Audit?
It is a community-led process where local stakeholders physically verify government expenditures and project implementation on the ground.

UPSC Civil Services Examination, Previous Year Question (PYQ)

Mains

Q. The Right to Information Act is not all about citizens’ empowerment alone, it essentially redefines the concept of accountability.” Discuss. (2018)