On 20th February 2026, a Division Bench comprised of Justice P.S. Narasimha and Justice Alok Aradhe issued an order in the Contempt Petition bearing Diary No. 36812 of 2024 arising out of alleged contempt of order dated 20.03.2023 in Pravasi Legal Cell v. Union of India and Ors, Directing the State Information Commissions and Central Information Commissions to ensure the functioning of the Online Right to Information (RTI) Portals.

Many of the readers would be aware that the Nagrik Project was created to monitor the compliance, functioning and accessibility of RTI portals in 2024 after it was noted that 7 states and 4 Union Territories did not have an RTI Portal. This lack of online RTI websites was despite a judgement from the Supreme Court dated 20.03.2023 in Pravasi Legal Cell v Union of India, where the Supreme Court had directed all State Governments, Union Territory Administrations, High Courts and Courts to make provisions for accepting RTI Applications online through a website. The Court had made these directions in light of Section 6(1) of the RTI Act, 2005, where the act explicitly provides the statutory right to citizens to file their RTI applications in electronic form.

Hence, we wrote letters to 7 States and 4 Union Territories regarding their missing Right to Information portals with a copy of the Supreme Court’s Judgement in Pravasi Legal Cell v Union of India, urging them to rectify this situation.

Upon Further examination, we realised consistent issues with nearly all State Portals for RTI Applications. These issues can be summarily described as:

1. Violation of the Accessibility Guidelines under the “Guidelines for Government Websites and Apps 3.0” (GIGW 3.0) issued by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY)

2. Incomplete Onboarding of Public Authorities on to the Portals

Noting the scale of the issues with existing portals, and lack of response from the 7 states and 4 Union Territories, we filed a Contempt Petition with the help of Advocate on Record N Sai Vinod and Advocate Madhav Aggarwal against all the States and Union Territories in the Supreme Court of India, for violation of the Supreme Court’s Judgement dated 20.03.2023 in Pravasi Legal Cell v. Union of India in August of 2024. You can find the full contempt petition attached below:

In September 2024, the Supreme Court issued notice in the Contempt petition. Over the next 2 years, all the states and Union Territories complied to certain extent. A complete timeline of their representations before the Supreme Court can be found here.

Finally, On 20th February 2026, the Supreme Court passed an order directing relevant authorities, i.e. State Information Commisions to monitor the implementation of functioning and accessibility of RTI portals in their jurisdictions. While relying on the Supreme Court’s judgement in “Kishan Chand Jain Vs. Union of India & Ors.” reported in [2023] 11 SCR 198, the Court said:

“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.”

A copy of the Order issued by the Supreme Court on 20.02.2026 in the Contempt Petition bearing Dairy No. 36812 of 2024 is attached below:

While we do celebrate this as an important milestone, we also recognise that it is not the destination in the journey to the road to transparency. A complete, accessible and fully functional RTI portal is a matter of statutory right for the Indian Citizen. In light of the Supreme Court’s directions, it is important to bring the attention of State Information Commissions from across the country to this order, and send them a representation to do the needful to make the websites functional. A copy of all the representations sent to the State Information Commissions in furtherance of this order in June of 2026 can be found here.