Request for Obtaining Information (Section 6)

If Section 3 declares that all citizens shall have the right to information, Section 6 is the provision through which that abstract right is actually exercised. It is the procedural doorway: it tells an applicant how to ask, where to ask, in what language, and crucially what an applicant need not disclose. For judiciary and CLAT-PG aspirants, Section 6 is among the most heavily examined provisions of the Act because it bristles with testable detail — the no-reasons rule in sub-section (2), the much-litigated five-day transfer obligation in sub-section (3), and the recurring conceptual trap that an RTI request seeks information held in records, not answers to questions or reasons for decisions. This chapter sets out the bare text, verifies it against the official source, and threads in the leading Supreme Court and Commission authorities you are expected to cite.

The bare text and its placement in the scheme

Section 6 sits in Chapter II of the Act, immediately after Sections 4 and 5, which respectively cast proactive disclosure obligations on public authorities and require the designation of Public Information Officers. Section 6 is the first provision that speaks from the applicant's side of the counter. It is titled “Request for obtaining information” and contains three sub-sections.

Sub-section (1) provides that “a person, who desires to obtain any information under this Act, shall make a request in writing or through electronic means in English or Hindi or in the official language of the area in which the application is being made, accompanying such fee as may be prescribed,” addressed either to the Central or State Public Information Officer of the concerned public authority, or to the Central or State Assistant Public Information Officer, “specifying the particulars of the information sought by him or her.” A proviso adds that where such a request cannot be made in writing, the Public Information Officer “shall render all reasonable assistance to the person making the request orally to reduce the same in writing.”

Sub-section (2) is the celebrated “no-reasons” clause, and sub-section (3) is the transfer mechanism. We unpack each in turn. The text used here is taken verbatim from the Act as published, and you should always quote it precisely in a mains answer rather than paraphrasing — examiners reward fidelity to the statutory language.

Form and mode of the request: writing or electronic means

The first operative requirement is form. The request must be made “in writing or through electronic means.” The deliberate inclusion of electronic means is significant: an email to the designated Public Information Officer, or a submission through an online RTI portal, satisfies Section 6(1) just as a paper application does. The Act does not prescribe any particular format; a request on a plain sheet of paper that conveys what is sought, accompanied by the prescribed fee, is a valid application. Public authorities cannot insist on a proprietary form as a condition of accepting a request, a position the Central Information Commission has consistently maintained.

The proviso to sub-section (1) is a striking accessibility safeguard. Where the applicant cannot reduce the request to writing — because of illiteracy, disability or otherwise — the Public Information Officer must render all reasonable assistance to reduce the oral request into writing. The right to information is thus not gated behind literacy. This proviso, read with the wide definition of “information” and “record” in Section 2, reflects the Act's design as a citizen-facing, low-friction regime, consistent with the object-and-scheme of the statute discussed in the introductory chapter.

Language: English, Hindi or the local official language

Section 6(1) permits the request to be made in English, Hindi, or the official language of the area in which the application is being made. This trilingual latitude is a practical recognition of India's linguistic diversity and prevents a public authority from rejecting an application merely because it is filed in the regional official language rather than in English or Hindi. An applicant in Tamil Nadu may file in Tamil; an applicant in West Bengal may file in Bengali, where these are the official languages of the area. A Public Information Officer is not entitled to return such an application on the ground of language, and must instead process it — obtaining translation assistance internally if required. The language clause therefore operates in favour of access, never as a ground of refusal.

The provision dovetails with the constitutional and statutory recognition of regional languages and reinforces the Act's federal, citizen-facing character: information held at the level of a State public authority should be capable of being sought by a citizen of that State in the language she speaks. A practical examination point is that the choice of permissible language belongs to the applicant, not the public authority; the officer cannot insist that an application drafted in the regional official language be re-submitted in English. Where the response itself must be drafted, the public authority will ordinarily reply in the language of the application or in the official language of the area, again reflecting the principle that linguistic form must never become a barrier to substance.

The prescribed fee and the BPL exemption

The request must be accompanied by “such fee as may be prescribed.” The fee is fixed by rules made under the rule-making power of the appropriate Government; under the central Right to Information (Regulation of Fee and Cost) Rules, the application fee is a modest sum, with additional per-page costs for copies. Two points are heavily examined. First, Section 7(5) provides that persons below the poverty line are exempt from any fee — an applicant holding a valid BPL certificate pays nothing, and a Public Information Officer cannot demand a fee from such an applicant. Second, Section 7(6) provides that where a public authority fails to comply with the time limits under Section 7(1), the information must be provided free of charge. The fee, in other words, is not a revenue device but a nominal access cost, and delay forfeits even that. The fee requirement can never be used to convert the right into a paid privilege; it must remain reasonable and prescribed, and the burden of any further cost determination lies on the public authority.

Specifying the particulars of the information sought

Sub-section (1) closes with the requirement that the request specify “the particulars of the information sought.” This is the only substantive content requirement: the applicant must describe the information with enough precision that the public authority can identify and retrieve it from its records. The clause does not, however, authorise a Public Information Officer to demand justification or to interrogate the applicant about the use to which the information will be put — that is barred by sub-section (2). The line, then, is between identification (permitted and required) and justification (prohibited).

The particulars requirement also intersects with the definition of “information” in Section 2(f), which means material in any form — records, documents, memos, e-mails, opinions, advices, press releases, circulars, orders, logbooks, contracts, reports, papers, samples, models and data. What the applicant seeks must be capable of being located within material that already exists in the public authority's records. The Public Information Officer is not obliged to create information, to collate fresh data, or to render an opinion. This distinction is the doctrinal heart of the Khanapuram Gandaiah and CBSE line of authority discussed below.

How precise must the particulars be? The standard is workability, not pedantic exactitude: the description must be sufficient for the public authority, acting reasonably, to locate the record. An application that is genuinely unintelligible or that asks the authority to undertake a roving, open-ended trawl of unconnected files may legitimately invite a request for clarification, but vagueness is not, by itself, a licence to reject — the Public Information Officer's duty under Section 5(3) to render reasonable assistance pulls in the opposite direction, requiring the officer to help the applicant frame the request where the intent is discernible. The particulars requirement is thus a tool of identification that the authority must apply cooperatively, not a technical trap to defeat access.

Section 6(2): no reasons, no personal details

Sub-section (2) provides that an applicant “shall not be required to give any reason for requesting the information or any other personal details except those that may be necessary for contacting him.” This is one of the most important liberties in the Act. The applicant's motive is legally irrelevant. A Public Information Officer cannot refuse a request on the ground that the applicant is litigious, that the request is part of a personal vendetta, or that the applicant has no apparent stake in the matter. The only personal detail an applicant must furnish is that necessary for contact — a name and an address to which the response can be sent.

The no-reasons rule has an important corollary for the exemptions regime. Because motive is irrelevant at the stage of requesting, the public authority's analysis is directed at the nature of the information under Section 8 and Section 9, not at the worthiness of the applicant. The one structured exception is the public-interest override built into several exemptions, where the Commission or authority weighs the public interest in disclosure against the protected interest — a balancing exercise the Supreme Court elaborated in Central Public Information Officer, Supreme Court of India v. Subhash Chandra Agarwal (2019), holding that the Act regulates the conflict between disclosure and confidentiality by applying the test of larger public interest. Even there, the inquiry is into the information, not into why the particular applicant wants it.

Information versus questions: the Khanapuram Gandaiah principle

A perennial misconception is that Section 6 entitles an applicant to ask the public authority questions — why a decision was taken, what the reasoning was, or what the authority's opinion is on some matter. The Supreme Court decisively rejected this in Khanapuram Gandaiah v. Administrative Officer, (2010) 2 SCC 1. The applicant had filed a request under Section 6 seeking to know why and for what reasons a judicial officer had reached a particular conclusion against him, and why certain documents had not been examined.

The Court held that under the RTI Act “information” is defined under Section 2(f) and a citizen is entitled to obtain copies of opinions, advices, circulars, orders and the like that exist on record, but cannot ask why such opinions or orders came to be passed. No litigant, the Court emphasised, can seek information as to why and for what reasons a judge arrived at a particular decision; a judge is not bound to explain afterwards the reasons for a conclusion. The applicant was held to have misused the Act. The takeaway for examinations is precise: Section 6 enables access to recorded material, not the generation of explanations. A query phrased as “why did you…” or “please clarify…” falls outside the Act unless the answer already exists as recorded information.

Access to existing records: CBSE v. Aditya Bandopadhyay

The complementary proposition — that information already embodied in a record must be furnished — was settled in Central Board of Secondary Education v. Aditya Bandopadhyay, (2011) 8 SCC 497. An examinee, dissatisfied with his marks, sought inspection of his evaluated answer-books under the RTI Act. The Supreme Court held that an evaluated answer-book is “information” within Section 2(f) and that an examinee has the right to inspect or take certified copies of his evaluated answer-books, the examining body being neither an intelligence nor a security organisation exempt under Section 24.

The Court was equally clear about the limits of the right. The RTI Act confers a right to access information, not a right to consequential reliefs; so while inspection of the answer-book was allowed, re-evaluation could not be directed under the Act, being neither available under the Act nor under the examining body's bye-laws. Read with Khanapuram Gandaiah, Aditya Bandopadhyay frames the operative scope of a Section 6 request: existing recorded material is accessible; reasons, opinions on demand, and consequential reliefs are not. Together these two decisions are the most frequently cited authorities on what a request under Section 6 can and cannot achieve.

Who may apply: "person" in Section 6 versus "citizen" in Section 3

A subtle drafting feature generates a recurring examination question. Section 3 confers the right to information on “all citizens,” whereas Section 6(1) opens with “a person who desires to obtain any information.” Does the use of “person” in Section 6 widen the class of applicants beyond citizens to include companies and other juristic persons?

The settled position is that Section 3 controls. The substantive right vests only in citizens, and citizenship under Part II of the Constitution attaches only to natural persons, not to companies, firms or associations. The Central Information Commission has accordingly held that a juristic person such as a company is not a “citizen” and cannot maintain a request under the Act — the word “person” in Section 6 must be read down in harmony with the citizen-only entitlement in Section 3. At the same time, the Commission has cautioned that while only citizens may apply, a public authority cannot weaponise the citizenship requirement by routinely demanding proof of citizenship as a device to deny information; the bona fides of an individual natural-person applicant are presumed. The practical rule: an individual Indian citizen may apply (and need not prove citizenship absent genuine doubt); a company or firm, as such, may not.

Section 6(3): the mandatory transfer of misdirected applications

Sub-section (3) addresses the common situation where a citizen, unsure which body holds the information, applies to the wrong public authority. It provides that where an application is made to a public authority requesting information “(i) which is held by another public authority; or (ii) the subject matter of which is more closely connected with the functions of another public authority,” the public authority to which the application is made “shall transfer the application or such part of it as may be appropriate to that other public authority and inform the applicant immediately about such transfer.” The first proviso fixes the outer limit: “the transfer of an application pursuant to this sub-section shall be made as soon as practicable but in no case later than five days from the date of receipt of the application.”

Three features deserve emphasis. First, the obligation is mandatory — the word is “shall”. A Public Information Officer who receives a misdirected application is not entitled to reject or return it, telling the applicant to approach the correct department; the correct and only course is transfer. Second, the transfer is of the application (or the appropriate part of it), and the applicant must be informed of the transfer immediately, in any event within five days. Third, the Commission has clarified that Section 6(3) authorises the public authority only to transfer; it does not confer power on the Public Information Officer to record his own view on the merits of the information sought before transferring. The five-day transfer window is distinct from, and does not enlarge, the substantive thirty-day period for furnishing information under Section 7.

Interplay with Section 5(2): the Assistant PIO and the extra five days

Section 6(1)(b) allows a request to be addressed not only to the Public Information Officer but also to the Central or State Assistant Public Information Officer. The Assistant Public Information Officer is a forwarding officer designated under Section 5(2) at the sub-divisional or sub-district level, whose role is to receive applications and appeals and forward them to the Public Information Officer or appellate authority. Where an application is given to an Assistant Public Information Officer, the proviso to Section 5(2) directs that a period of five days “shall be added” in computing the response period under Section 7(1). This addition is a different mechanism from the Section 6(3) transfer: the Section 5(2) five days accounts for the internal forwarding from the Assistant Public Information Officer to the Public Information Officer of the same authority, whereas Section 6(3) governs transfer to a different public authority. Candidates frequently conflate the two five-day rules; keeping them distinct is worth easy marks.

A worked illustration helps. Suppose an application is handed to an Assistant Public Information Officer at a sub-district office on 1 April. Five days are added under the Section 5(2) proviso to account for forwarding to the Public Information Officer, so the thirty-day clock under Section 7(1) effectively runs to thirty-five days. If, however, the application were instead found to relate to information held by an altogether different public authority, the Section 6(3) transfer obligation would bite: the receiving authority would have to transfer it within five days and inform the applicant, and the thirty-day period would then be reckoned against the transferee. The two provisions answer different questions — one about internal routing within a single authority, the other about routing between authorities — and an examiner will often test whether a candidate can tell which mechanism a given fact-pattern engages.

What Section 6 does not require: a checklist

Because so many examination questions are framed as “which of the following is the applicant required to do,” it helps to consolidate the negatives. Under Section 6, an applicant is not required to: (a) give any reason or justification for seeking the information; (b) disclose personal details beyond those needed for contact; (c) demonstrate any locus, interest or stake in the subject matter; (d) use a prescribed printed form, an application on plain paper sufficing; or (e) pay any fee if the applicant is below the poverty line. Conversely, the applicant is required to: (a) make the request in writing or by electronic means (or orally, with the officer's assistance to reduce it to writing); (b) use English, Hindi or the local official language; (c) pay the prescribed fee (subject to the BPL exemption); and (d) specify the particulars of the information sought with reasonable precision. Mapping a fact-pattern against these two lists resolves the majority of Section 6 problems. For the broader architecture in which this provision operates, return to the RTI Act notes hub.

Exam pointers and common traps

First, remember the trilingual rule and that the local official language is sufficient — a tempting distractor is that requests must be in English or Hindi only. Second, the no-reasons rule of Section 6(2) is near-absolute; the single permitted personal detail is contact information. Third, distinguish “information” (accessible) from “reasons/opinions on demand” (not accessible) using Khanapuram Gandaiah, and remember that the RTI Act gives access, not consequential relief, per Aditya Bandopadhyay. Fourth, the Section 6(3) transfer is mandatory and capped at five days, and a misdirected application can never be simply rejected. Fifth, keep the two five-day rules apart — Section 5(2) proviso (forwarding by Assistant PIO) versus Section 6(3) (transfer to another public authority). Sixth, on the citizen-versus-person point, Section 3 governs: only citizens, being natural persons, may invoke the Act, though proof of citizenship cannot be made a routine hurdle. Get these six right and Section 6 questions become reliable scoring opportunities.