KISHAN CHAND JAIN versus UNION OF INDIA & ORS.
[2023] 11 S.C.R. 198, Supreme Court of India, 2023
Outcome: Directions issued
Segment: Issues
[2023] 11 S.C.R. 198 : 2023 INSC 741
198
CASE DETAILS
KISHAN CHAND JAIN
v.
UNION OF INDIA & ORS.
(Writ Petition (Civil) No. 990 of 2021)
AUGUST 17, 2023
[DR. DHANANJAYA Y CHANDRACHUD, CJI, 
PAMIDIGHANTAM SRI NARASIMHA AND 
J.B. PARDIWALA, JJ.]
HEADNOTES
Issue for consideration : Direction sought by Writ Petitioner to 
implement the mandate of s.4 of the Right to Information Act, 2005. 
Right to Information Act, 2005 – ss. 3 and 4 – Obligation of public 
authorities – Principle of accountability:
Held : Power and accountability go hand in hand – While declaring 
that all citizens shall have the ‘right to information’ u/s.3 of the Act, the co-
relative ‘duty’ in the form of obligation of public authorities is recognized in 
s.4 of the Act – The core of the right created u/s.3 in reality rests on the duty to 
perform statutory obligations – The purpose and object of the statute will be 
accomplished only if the principle of accountability governs the relationship 
between ‘right holders’ and ‘duty bearers’ – The Central Information 
Commission and the State Information Commissions have a prominent 
place and statutory recognition – The Central Information Commission and 
the State Information Commissions directed to continuously monitor the 
implementation of the mandate of s.4 of the Act as also prescribed by the 
Department of Personnel and Training in its Guidelines and Memorandums 
issued from time to time – Commissioners entitled to issue recommendations 
under sub-section
(5) of s.25 to public authorities for taking necessary steps 
for complying the provisions of the Act. [Paras 22, 25 and 26]
Right to Information Act, 2005 – s.25 – Mechanism of ‘Monitoring 
and Reporting’ – Discussed.
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KISHAN CHAND JAIN v. UNION OF INDIA & ORS.
LIST OF CITATIONS AND OTHER REFERENCES
Institute of Chartered Accountants of India v. Shaunak H. Satya and 
others (2011) 8 SCC 781 : [2011] 14 SCR 328; Government (NCT of Delhi) 
v. Union of India (2018) 8 SCC 501 : [2018] 7 SCR 1; Vijay Rajmohan v. CBI 
(2023) 1 SCC 329 – relied on. 
Central Board of Secondary Education and another v. Aditya 
Bandopadhyay and others (2011) 8 SCC 497 : [2011] 11 SCR 1028;  Verhoeven, 
Marie -Emmanuelle v. Union of India and others (2016) 6 SCC 456 : [2016] 3 
SCR 48; Central Public Information Oﬃ  cer, Supreme Court of India v. Subhash 
Chandra Agarwal (2020) 5 SCC 481 : [2019] 16 SCR 424 – referred to. 
OTHER CASE DETAILS INCLUDING IMPUGNED 
ORDER AND APPEARANCES
CIVIL ORIGINAL JURISDICTION : Writ Petition (Civil) No.990 of 
2021.
(Under Article 32 of The Constitution of India)
Appearances:
Kishan Chand Jain, Rajesh Kumar, E. C. Agrawala, Advs. for the 
Petitioner.
Tushar Mehta, SG, Mrs. Madhavi Divan, ASG, P.V. Yogeshwaran, 
A.A.G., V K Shukla, Sr. Adv., Anmol Chandan, Ms. Nidhi Khanna, 
Rajat Nair, S S Rebello, P V Yogeswaran, Arvind Kumar Sharma, Adarsh 
Upadhyay, Pallavi Kumari, Dr. Monika Gusain, Abhinav Mukerji, 
Akshay Shrivastava, Mrs. Bihu Sharma, Ms. Pratishtha Vij, Saket Singh, 
Mrs. Sangeeta Singh, Mrs. Niranjana Singh, Ms. Madhumita Bhattacharjee, 
Ms. Urmila Kar Purkayastha, Annant, Ms. Arushi Mishra, Sandeep, 
Mahfooz Ahsan Nazki, Polanki Gowtham, T Vijaya Bhaskar Reddy, 
Ms.
Niti Richhariya, K V Girish Chowdary, Ms. Rajeswari Mukherjee, Sriharsha 
Peechara, Rajiv Kumar Choudhry, Ms. Pallavi, Duvvuri Subrahmanya Bhanu, 
Yashraj Singh Bundela, Sunny Choudhary, Ms. Abha Sharma, Ms. Deepanwita 
Priyanka, Sumeer Sodhi, Ms. Tanya Verma, Abhay Anil Anturkar,  Dhruv Tank, 
M/s. Dr. R.R. Deshpande & Associates Abhimanyu Tewari, Ms. Eliza Bar, Ms. 
K. Enatoli Sema, Ms. Limayinla Jamir, Amit Kumar Singh, Ms. Chubalemla
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[2023] 11 S.C.R.
Chang, Prang Newmai, Rajiv Shankar Dwivedi, Ms. Madhusmita Bora,  Pawan 
Kishore Singh,  Dipankar Singh, Ms. Pavithra V, Dr. Ravindra Chingale, 
Siddharth Dharmadhikari, Aaditya Aniruddha Pande, Bharat Bagla, Sourav 
Singh, Som Raj Choudhury, Ms. Shrutee Aradhna, Anand Shankar, Sameer 
Abhyankar, Ms. Nishi Sangtani, Ms. Vani Vandana Chhetri, Ms. Sugandh 
Rathore, Vishnu Sharma, Ms. Anupama Sharma,  V.N. Raghupathy,  Manendra 
Pal Gupta, Mrs. Ansha Varma, Pukhrambam Ramesh Kumar, Karun Sharma, 
Jatinder Kumar Bhatia, Krishnam Mishra, Param Kumar Mishra, Jayant Mohan, 
Ms. Adya Shree Dutta, Advs. for the Respondents.
JUDGMENT/ORDER OF THE SUPREME COURT
JUDGMENT
PAMIDIGHANTAM SRI NARASIMHA, J. 
1. This Writ Petition under Article 32 of the Constitution of India 
ﬁ led by way of a public interest litigation seeking multiple reliefs, running 
into three pages, the gist of which is only for a direction to implement the 
mandate of Section 4 of the Right to Information Act, 2005.1 As the prayer 
is only for implementing the various obligations enlisted under Section 4, 
it is necessary to reproduce the Section for ready reference:
“4. Obligations of public authorities-
(I) Every public authority shall—
(a) maintain all its records duly catalogued and indexed in a manner 
and the form which facilitates the right to information under this Act 
and ensure that all records that are appropriate to be computerised 
are, within a reasonable time
and subject to availability of resources, 
computerised and connected through a network all over the country 
on diﬀ erent systems so that access to such records is facilitated; 
(b) publish within one hundred and twenty days from the enactment 
of this Act,—
(i) the particulars of its organisation, functions and duties; 
(ii) the powers and duties of its oﬃ  cers and employees; 
1 
Hereinaf er referred to as ‘Act’
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KISHAN CHAND JAIN v. UNION OF INDIA & ORS.
[PAMIDIGHANTAM SRI NARASIMHA, J. ]
(iii) the procedure followed in the decision making process, including 
channels of supervision and accountability; 
(iv) the norms set by it for the discharge of its functions; 
(v) the rules, regulations, instructions, manuals and records, held by it or 
under its control or used by its employees for discharging its functions; 
(vi) a statement of the categories of documents that are held by it or 
under its control;
(vii) the particulars of any arrangement that exists for consultation 
with, or representation by, the members of the public in relation to the 
formulation of its policy or implementation thereof 
(viii) a statement of the boards, councils, committees and other bodies 
consisting of two or more persons constituted as its part or for the 
purpose of its advice, and as to whether meetings of those boards, 
councils, committees and other bodies are open to the public, or the 
minutes of such meetings are accessible for public; 
(ix) a directory of its oﬃ  cers and employees; 
(x) the monthly remuneration received by each of its oﬃ  cers and 
employees, including the system of compensation as provided in its 
regulations;
 (xi) the budget allocated to each of its agency, indicating the particulars 
of all plans, proposed expenditures and reports on disbursements made; 
(xii) the manner of execution of subsidy programmes, including the 
amounts allocated and the details of beneﬁ
ciaries of such programmes; 
(xiii) particulars of recipients of concessions, permits or authorisations 
granted by it; 
(xiv) details in respect of the information, available to or held by it, 
reduced in an electronic form; 
(xv) the particulars of facilities available to citizens for obtaining 
information, including the working hours of a library or reading room, 
if maintained for public use;
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[2023] 11 S.C.R.
(xvi) the names, designations and other particulars of the Public 
Information Oﬃ  cers; 
(xvii) such other information as may be prescribed; and thereafter update 
these publications every year; 
(c) publish all relevant facts while formulating important policies or 
announcing the decisions which aﬀ ect public; 
(d) provide reasons for its administrative or quasi-judicial decisions to 
aﬀ ected persons.
(2) It shall be a constant endeavour of every public authority to take steps 
in accordance with the requirements of clause (b) of sub-section (1) to 
provide as much information suo motu to the public at regular intervals 
through various means of communications, including internet, so that the 
public have minimum resort to the use of this Act to obtain information. 
(3) For the purposes of sub-section (1), every information shall be 
disseminated widely and in such form and manner which is easily 
accessible to the public. 
(4) All materials shall be disseminated taking into consideration the 
cost eﬀ ectiveness, local language and the most eﬀ ective method of 
communication in that local area and the information should be easily 
accessible, to the extent possible in electronic format with the Central 
Public Information Oﬃ  cer or State Public Information Oﬃ  cer, as the 
case may be, available free or at such cost of the medium or the print cost 
price as may be prescribed. 
Explanation.—For the purposes of sub-sections (3)
and (4), “disseminated” 
means making known or communicated the information to the public 
through notice boards, newspapers, public announcements, media 
broadcasts, the internet or any other means, including inspection of oﬃ  ces 
of any public authority.”
2. The statutory obligations of public authorities under Section 4(1) relate 
to: (a) maintenance of all public records, duly catalogued and indexed for easy 
accessibility of the information; (b) publishing particulars of the organisational 
structure, functions and duties of oﬃ  cers, procedures that are followed for 
decision-making, salary structure, budget allocation, publication of facts
203
relating to policies and announcements which includes providing reasons for 
quasi-judicial decisions. Sub-section (2) mandates the public authority to take 
steps for providing information under clause (b) of sub-section (1) suo motu and 
further to disseminate the said information for easy accessibility to the public. 
The scope and ambit of Section 4 has already been considered by this Court in 
a number of decisions.2
3. We may note the observation of this Court in just one of the cases, 
namely Institute of Chartered Accountants of India v. Shaunak H. Satya and 
others (2011) 8 SCC 781:
“23. The information to which the RTI Act applies falls into two 
categories, namely, (i) information which promotes transparency and 
accountability in the working of every public authority, disclosure of 
which helps in containing or discouraging corruption, enumerated 
in clauses (b) and (c) of Section 4(1) of the RTI Act; and (ii) other 
information held by public authorities not falling under Sections 4(1)
(b) and (c) of the RTI Act. In regard to information falling under the 
ﬁ rst category, the public authorities owe a duty to disseminate the 
information widely suo motu to the public so as to make it easily 
accessible to the public. In regard to information enumerated or 
required to be enumerated under Sections 4(1)(b) and (c) of the 
RTI Act, necessarily and naturally, the competent authorities under 
the RTI Act will have to act in a proactive manner so as to ensure
accountability and ensure that the ﬁ ght against corruption goes on 
relentlessly. But in regard to other information which do not fall 
under Sections 4(1)(b) and (c) of the Act, there is a need to proceed 
with circumspection as it is necessary to ﬁ nd out whether they are 
exempted from disclosure.
24. One of the objects of democracy is to bring about transparency 
of information to contain corruption and bring about accountability. 
2 
Central Board of Secondary Education and another v. Aditya Bandopadhyay and 
others (2011) 8 SCC 497,

Institute of Chartered Accountants of India v. Shaunak H. Satya and others (2011) 8 
SCC 781,

Verhoeven, Marie -Emmanuelle v. Union of India and others. (2016) 6 SCC 456 and

Central Public Information Oﬃ  cer, Supreme Court of India v. Subhash Chandra Agar-
wal (2020) 5 SCC 481
KISHAN CHAND JAIN v. UNION OF INDIA & ORS.
[PAMIDIGHANTAM SRI NARASIMHA, J. ]
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[2023] 11 S.C.R.
But achieving this object does not mean that other equally important 
public interests including eﬃ  cient functioning of the governments 
and public authorities, optimum use of limited fiscal resources, 
preservation of conﬁ dentiality of sensitive information, etc. are to be 
ignored or sacriﬁ ced. The object of the RTI Act is to harmonise the 
conﬂ icting public interests, that is, ensuring transparency to bring 
in accountability and containing corruption on the one hand, and 
at the same time ensure that the revelation of information, in actual 
practice, does not harm or adversely aﬀ ect other public interests 
which include eﬃ  cient functioning of the governments, optimum 
use of limited ﬁ scal resources and preservation of conﬁ dentiality of 
sensitive information, on the other hand. While Sections 3 and 4 seek 
to achieve the ﬁ rst objective, Sections 8, 9, 10 and 11 seek to achieve 
the second objective.”
4. Having noted the scope and ambit of the obligations imposed on 
public authorities under Section 4, as elucidated by this Court, we may 
now refer to the prayer made by the petitioner in the Writ Petition. The writ 
petitioner seeks a direction:
(a) 
to ensure that public authorities comply with the mandatory 
suo motu disclosures under Section 4 on a proactive basis;
(b) 
to ensure that website disclosures of public authorities are 
complete, easily accessible as required by Clause No. 2.2 of 
the O.M. dated
07.11.2019;
(c) 
to ensure compliance of proactive disclosure package audited 
by third party under Section 4 of the Act read with Clause 4.4 
of O.M. dated 07.11.2019;
(d) 
to appoint senior oﬃ  cer as nodal oﬃ  cer for being accountable 
for compliances with respect to proactive disclosure guidelines 
as per Clause 5.1 of the O.M. dated 07.11.2019;
(e) 
direct Central Information Commission/State Information 
Commissions to examine third party audit reports as per Clause 
4.5 of the O.M. dated 07.11.2019;
205
(f) 
to ensure that details of disclosure guidelines are reﬂ ected in the 
Annual Report as per Clause 6.1 of the O.M. dated 07.11.2019; 
and
(g) 
to send ‘Action Taken Report’ to the concerned Information 
Commission as per Clause 4.3 of O.M. dated 07.11.2019. 
5. In other words, the prayers in the Writ Petition are for implementation 
of Section 4 of the Act, coupled with the instructions for its execution as 
provided in the O.M. dated 07.11.2019.
6. Union of India has ﬁ led a ‘Note on Submissions’ explaining the 
steps that have been taken for implementation of the statutory mandate of 
Section 4. We will refer to some of these before giving necessary directions.
7. In order to implement the provisions of the Act, the Department 
of Personnel and Training constituted a Task Force on 06.05.2011 to 
improve quality and quantity of disclosure contemplated under Section 4. 
Pursuant to the report submitted by the Task Force, the Department issued 
certain Guidelines through its O.M. dated 15.04.2013. These guidelines 
relate to various issues including suo motu proactive disclosures under 
Section 4 and also to put in place a mechanism for compliance and 
monitoring. 
8. As per the Guidelines each Public Authority must undertake the 
following steps:
“(a) Comply with the guidelines and send an action taken report 
to the CIC; (b) Get the proactive disclosure package [Section 
4(1)(b) of the RTI, Act] audited by a third party audit every 
year. This should be communicated
to the CIC annually through 
publication on their own websites. This requirement to publish 
the needful information on the website of each public authority 
would fully take care of the grievances of the petitioner; (c) 
The CIC should examine the third-party audit reports for each 
Ministry/Public Authority and offer advice/ recommendations 
to the concerned Ministry/Public Authority; (d) The CIC should 
carry out sample audits for a few of the Ministries/Public 
Authorities each year with regard to adequacy of the items 
included as well as compliance of the Ministry/Public Authority 
KISHAN CHAND JAIN v. UNION OF INDIA & ORS.
[PAMIDIGHANTAM SRI NARASIMHA, J. ]
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with these guidelines; (e) An oﬃ  cer, not below the rank of a Joint 
Secretary, should be appointed as the Nodal oﬃ  cer in the Central 
Ministry/Public Authority to ensure compliance with the proactive 
disclosure guidelines, and (f) Every Ministry/Department to include a 
chapter on RTI Act in its Annual Report submitted to the Parliament, 
mandatorily containing the details about compliance with proactive 
disclosure guidelines.”
9. It is relevant to refer to Clause 4 of O.M. dated 15.04.2013 which 
deals with the compliance mechanism:
“4.0  Compliance with Provisions of suo motu (proactive) 
disclosures under the RTI Act.
4.1 
Each Ministry/Public Authority shall ensure that these 
guidelines are fully operationalized within a period of 6 
months from the date of their issue.
4.2 
Proactive disclosure as per these guidelines would require 
collating a large quantum of information and digitizing it. 
For this purpose, Ministries/Public Authorities may engage 
consultants or outsource such work to expeditiously comply 
with these guidelines. For this purpose, the plan/non-plan 
funds of that department may be utilized.
4.3 
The Action Taken Report on the compliance of these 
guidelines should be sent, along with the URL link, to the 
DoPT and Central Information Commission soon after the 
expiry of the initial period of 6 months.
4.4 
Each Ministry/Public Authority should get its proactive 
disclosure package audited by third
party every year. The 
audit should cover compliance with the proactive disclosure 
guidelines as well as adequacy of the items included in 
the package. The audit should examine whether there are 
any other types of information which could be proactively 
disclosed. Such audit should be done annually and should 
be communicated to the Central Information Commission 
annually through publication on their own websites. All 
Public Authorities should proactively disclose the names of 
the third party auditors on their website. For carrying out
207
third party audit through outside consultants also, Ministries/
Public Authorities should utilize their plan/non-plan funds.
4.5 
The Central Information Commission should examine the 
third-party audit reports for each Ministry/Public Authority 
and offer advice/recommendations to the concerned 
Ministries/Public Authorities.
4.6 
Central Information Commission should carry out sample 
audit of few of the Ministries/Public Authorities each 
year with regard to adequacy of items included as well as 
compliance of the Ministry/Public Authority with these 
guidelines.
4.7 
Compliance with the proactive disclosure guidelines, its 
audit by third party and its communication to the Central 
Information Commission should be included as RFD target.”
10. The ‘Note on Submissions’ discloses that the Department 
continued to follow the mandate of Section 4 and sought compliance of the 
Guidelines by issuing further O.M.’s such as O.M. issued on 10.12.2013, 
22.09.2014 and 09.07.2015.
11. Proceeding further, in its endeavour to make information more 
accessible, the Department constituted two more Committees which made 
recommendations for eﬀ ective implementation of Section 4. The ﬁ rst 
Committee headed by Shri A. N. Tiwari, CIC (Retd) made recommendations 
with respect to (a) making online access to information more user-friendly 
and (b) setting up of grievance redressal mechanism, amongst others. 
These recommendations were accepted by the Department vide O.M. dated
29.06.2015.
12. The second committee headed by Dr. Devesh Chaturvedi, former 
Joint Secretary also made certain recommendations and some of them were 
accepted through O.M. dated 30.06.2016. Some of the recommendations 
that were accepted relate to (a) setting up of Consultative Committees by 
public authority for systematic and regular interaction with its oﬃ  cials and to 
advise public authorities on information which can be uploaded suo motu, (b) 
setting up of Information and Facilitation Centres to educate citizens about 
information available, (c) providing searchable and retrievable database of 
information on the website of the public authorities; and importantly (d) 
KISHAN CHAND JAIN v. UNION OF INDIA & ORS.
[PAMIDIGHANTAM SRI NARASIMHA, J. ]
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to undertake transparency audits by training institutes under the Ministry/
Department/Public Authority.
13. The Note also indicated that by O.M. dated 15.10.2019, the 
Department relaxed the audit criteria by allowing the public authorities to give 
the transparency audits conducted by any Government Training Institutes, 
i.e., in cases where there is no institute existing in the Ministry/Department/
Public Authority.
14. As many Central Authorities faced diﬃ  culties on account of, (a) 
substantial diﬀ erence in the audit cost charged by diﬀ erent auditing training 
institutes, (b) shortage of manpower/adequately trained manpower, and (c) 
pre-engagement of the training institute with its scheduled training activities, 
a further relaxation through O.M. dated 20.09.2022 was given as per which 
the task of transparency audits was permitted to be given to any Government 
Training Institute by the Ministry/Department/Public Authority under the 
Central or State Governments.
15. It is clariﬁ ed that if a Training Institute is in itself a public authority, 
then it may give its audits conducted by Government Training Institute 
(O.M. 07.09.2021). The Note also states that the department issued O.M. 
dated 14.09.2022 directing all Ministries/Departments/Public Authorities 
to (a) nominate Training Institute for third party audit; (b) furnish other 
requisite details to the CIC as per the Exhaustive Guidelines issued vide OM 
dated
07.11.2019; (c) adhere to the timelines set by the CIC for conducting 
transparency audits; and (d) observe the earlier guidelines issued vide OMs 
dated 13.04.2013 and 07.11.2019.
16. On 07.11.2019, the Department of Personnel and Training issued 
an O.M. reiterating the 15.04.2013 Guidelines. Clause 4.4 was revised in the 
following terms:
“4.4 Each Ministry/Public Authority should get its proactive disclosure 
package audited by third party every year. The audit should cover 
compliance with the proactive disclosure guidelines as well as adequacy 
of the items included in the package. The audit should examine whether 
there are any other types of information which could be proactively 
disclosed. Such audit should be done annually and should be 
communicated to the Central Information Commission annually through 
publication on their own websites. Further the task of undertaking
209
transparency audits may be given to the respective Training Institutes 
under each Ministry/Department/Public Authority and across the States 
and Union Territories. “However in cases where no training institute 
exists under the Ministries/Departments/Public Authorities the tasks 
of undertaking transparency audits may be given to any Government 
Training Institute.” All Public Authorities should proactively disclose 
the names of the third party auditors on their website. For carrying out 
third party audit through outside consultants also. Ministries/Public 
Authorities should utilize their plan/non-plan funds.”
17. It is important to extract the ‘present status’ of compliances as 
indicated in the Note ﬁ led on behalf of Union of India. Para 17 to 20 of the 
aﬃ  davit is as follows:
“17. Every public authority registered with the CIC is required to submit 
four quarterly returns for assessment of its performance in respect of 
the implementation of the RTI Act.
18. Out of total 2278 Public Authorities, 2173 of them i.e., 95% public 
authorities have submitted their all four quarterly returns to the 
Commission in the reporting year i.e., 2021-22 (Annual Report 2021-
22 of the CIC).
19. The suo motu disclosure under Section 4 of the Act by the public 
authorities and undertaking the transparency audit of the disclosure are 
two diﬀ erent provisions. Whereas the former is a mandatory provisions 
stipulated in the RTI Act, the latter was introduced vide OM date
15.04.2013 and is directory.
20. Thus, it is respectfully submitted that those public authorities which 
have not obtained an audit of their proactive disclosure packages by 
a third party cannot be construed to be in violation of Section 4 of the 
RTI Act.”
18. On the other hand, the written submission ﬁ led on behalf of 
the petitioner disclosed that only 33% of the public authorities have got 
transparency audits conducted in the last four years. It is stated that the poor 
implementation of third-party audit is adversely commented upon even by the 
Department in its O.M. dated 14.09.2022. It is further averred that apart from 
the poor implementation of third-party audit, 33% of public authorities which 
had their transparency audits conducted performed badly, clearly evidences 
KISHAN CHAND JAIN v. UNION OF INDIA & ORS.
[PAMIDIGHANTAM SRI NARASIMHA, J. ]
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that quality and quantity of proactive disclosure were not in accordance with 
Section 4 of the Act. 
19. From the information made available to us, one thing is evident. 
The system needs the concerned authority’s complete attention, followed 
by strict and continuous monitoring. It is in this context that the functioning 
and duties of the Central and State Information Commissions assume utmost 
importance. 
20. It is necessary to take note of the statutorily incorporated 
‘monitoring and reporting’ mechanism in section 25 of the Act. This is an 
important feature of ‘accountability’ of statutory authorities. 
“25. Monitoring and reporting.
(1) The Central Information Commission or State Information 
Commission, as the case may be, shall, as soon as practicable after 
the end of each year, prepare a report on the implementation of the 
provisions of this Act during that year and forward a copy thereof to 
the appropriate Government. (2) Each Ministry or Department shall, 
in relation to the public authorities within their jurisdiction, collect 
and provide such information to the Central Information Commission 
or State Information Commission, as the case may be. as is required to 
prepare the report under this section and comply with the requirements 
concerning the furnishing of that information and keeping of records 
for the purposes of this section. (3) Each report shall state in respect 
of the year to which the report
relates,— (a) the number of requests 
made to each public authority; (b) the number of decisions where 
applicants were not entitled to access to the documents pursuant to the 
requests, the provisions of this Act under which these decisions were 
made and the number of times such provisions were invoked; (c) the 
number of appeals referred to the Central Information Commission 
or State Information Commission, as the case may be, for review, the 
nature of the appeals and the outcome of the appeals; (d) particulars 
of any disciplinary action taken against any oﬃ  cer in respect of the 
administration of this Act; (e) the amount of charges collected by 
each public authority under this Act; (J) any facts which indicate an 
eﬀ ort by the public authorities to administer and implement the spirit 
and intention of this Act; (g) recommendations for reform, including
211
recommendations in respect of the particular public authorities, for 
the development, improvement, modernisation, reform or amendment 
to this Act or other legislation or common law or any other matter 
relevant for operationalising the right to access information. (4) 
The Central Government or the State Government, as the case may 
be, may, as soon as practicable after the end of each year, cause 
a copy of the report of the Central Information Commission or 
the State Information Commission, as the case may be, referred 
to in sub-section (1) to be laid before each House of Parliament 
or, as the case may be, before each House of the State Legislature, 
where there are two Houses, and where there is one House of the 
State Legislature before that House. (5) If it appears to the Central 
Information Commission or State Information Commission, as the 
case may be, that the practice of a public authority in relation to 
the exercise of its functions under this Act does not conform with 
the provisions or spirit of this Act, it may give to the authority a 
recommendation specifying the steps which ought in its opinion to 
be taken for promoting such conformity.”
21. Section 25 gloriously integrates ‘the right to information’ of 
a citizen with the collective responsibility of the Government to the 
Legislature under Article 75(3) or 164(2) of the Constitution. At the 
beginning of the chain is the citizen exercising her right to information. 
The Public Authority
obligated to provide the information is accountable 
to the Department. The Department, shall, in relation to the public 
authorities within their jurisdiction, collect and provide such information 
to the CIC or SIC (see Section 25(2)). The CIC or SIC shall then prepare 
a ‘Report’ on the implementation of the provisions of the Act during 
the year and forward a copy to the appropriate Government (see Section 
25(1)). The ‘Report’ prepared by the CIC or SIC is mandated to comprise 
all details speciﬁ ed in Clauses (a) to (g) of Section 25(3). The Central 
or the State Government shall cause a copy of the Report of the CIC/
SIC be laid before Parliament/Legislative Assembly (Section 25(4)). It 
is then for the House, representing the will of the people, to ensure that 
the conﬁ dence reposed by it in the Council of Ministers (Government) 
is aﬃ  rmed. Thus, the circle of representative democracy connects 
supremacy of the Parliament with the right of the citizen by ensuring 
KISHAN CHAND JAIN v. UNION OF INDIA & ORS.
[PAMIDIGHANTAM SRI NARASIMHA, J. ]
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[2023] 11 S.C.R.
that the State performs its obligations. This is the primary principle of 
accountability.
22. Power and accountability go hand in hand. While declaring that all 
citizens shall have the ‘right to information’ under Section 3 of the Act, the 
co-relative ‘duty’ in the form of obligation of public authorities is recognized 
in Section 4. The core of the right created under Section 3 in reality rests on 
the duty to perform statutory obligations. Public accountability is a crucial 
feature that governs the relationship between ‘duty bearers’ and ‘right 
holders’. Recognizing the importance of accountability as a measure of 
administrative law, this Court in Vijay Rajmohan v. CBI,3 held as follows:
“34. Accountability in itself is an essential principle of administrative 
law. Judicial review of administrative action will be eﬀ ective and 
meaningful by ensuring accountability of the oﬃ  cer or authority in 
charge.
35. The principle of accountability is considered as a cornerstone of 
the human rights framework. It is a crucial feature that must govern the 
relationship between “duty bearers” in authority and “right holders” 
aﬀ ected by their actions. Accountability of institutions is also one of 
the development goals adopted by the United Nations in 2015 and is 
also recognized as one of the six principles of the Citizens Charter 
Movement.
36. Accountability has three essential constituent dimensions : 
(i) responsibility, (ii)
answerability, and (iii) enforceability. Responsibility 
requires the identiﬁ cation of duties and performance obligations of 
individuals in authority and with authorities. Answerability requires 
reasoned decision-making so that those aﬀ ected by their decisions, 
including the public, are aware of the same. Enforceability requires 
appropriate corrective and remedial action against lack of responsibility 
and accountability to be taken. Accountability has a corrective function, 
making it possible to address individual or collective grievances. It 
enables action against oﬃ  cials or institutions for dereliction of duty. 
It also has a preventive function that helps to identify the procedure or 
policy which has become non-functional and to improve upon it.”
3 
(2023) 1 SCC 329
213
23. In Government (NCT of Delhi) v. Union of India4 referring to 
the direct relationship between principles of collective responsibility and 
Government accountability, this Court held:-
“325. There is a direct relationship between the principle of collective 
responsibility and Government accountability. This relationship is 
conceptualised in The Oxford Companion to Politics in India:
Accountability can be deﬁ ned in terms of outcomes rather than 
processes of Government….. It also includes the criterion of 
responsiveness to changes in circumstances that alter citizen needs 
and abilities… In other words, accountability refers to the extent 
to which actual policies and their implementation coincide with a 
normative ideal in terms of what they ought to be… In this broad sense, 
accountability amounts to evaluating the nature of governance itself, 
in outcome-oriented terms.”
24. Apart from the obligation of monitoring and reporting, the 
Central and State Information Commissioners are also given the power to 
recommend steps which the public authority ought to take in implementing 
the Act. Sub-Section (5) of Section 25 is in the following terms:
“(5) If it appears to the Central Information Commission or State 
Information Commission, as the case may be, that the practice 
of a public authority in relation to the exercise of its functions 
under this Act does not conform with the provisions or spirit of 
this Act, it may give to the authority a recommendation
specifying 
the steps which ought in its opinion to be taken for promoting 
such conformity.”
25. Having examined the Right to Information established by the 
statute under Section 3 in the context of the obligations of public authorities 
under Section 4, we are of the opinion that the purpose and object of the 
statute will be accomplished only if the principle of accountability governs 
the relationship between ‘right holders’ and ‘duty bearers’. The Central 
and State Information Commissions have a prominent place, having a 
statutory recognition under Chapters III and IV of the Act and their powers 
4 
(2018) 8 SCC 501
KISHAN CHAND JAIN v. UNION OF INDIA & ORS.
[PAMIDIGHANTAM SRI NARASIMHA, J. ]
214
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[2023] 11 S.C.R.
and functions all enumerated in detail in Section 18 of the Act. We have 
also noted the special power of ‘Monitoring and Reporting’ conferred on 
the Central and State Information Commissioners which must be exercised 
keeping in mind the purpose and object of the Act, i.e., ‘to promote 
transparency and accountability in working of every public authority’.
26. For the reasons stated above, we direct that the Central Information 
Commission and the State Information Commissions shall continuously 
monitor the implementation of the mandate of Section 4 of the Act as also 
prescribed by the Department of Personnel and Training in its Guidelines 
and Memorandums issued from time to time. The directions will also include 
instructions under O.M. dated 07.11.2019 issued by the Department. For this 
purpose, the Commissioners will also be entitled to issue recommendations 
under sub-Section (5) of Section 25 to public authorities for taking necessary 
steps for complying with the provisions of the Act.
27. The Writ Petition (C) No. 990 of 2021 is disposed of with the 
direction to the Central Information Commission and the State Information 
Commissions to ensure proper implementation of the mandate of Section 4 
of the Act, by following the directions as indicated above.
28. There shall be no order on costs.
Headnotes prepared by:  
Directions issued.
Ankit Gyan 
(Assisted by : Shevali Monga, LCRA)