The Right to Information Act, 2005, created a framework for citizens to access government-held information. Section 8 listed exemptions: categories of information a public authority could withhold. Clause (j) of Section 8(1) addressed personal information. It was the most nuanced exemption in the Act: a conditional, qualified, discretionary gate, not an absolute bar.

Section 44(3) of the DPDP Act substituted that clause. The substitution was not announced as a significant change to the RTI regime. It was enacted as part of a data protection statute, in a section titled "Amendments to certain Acts," alongside amendments to the Information Technology Act and the Telecom Regulatory Authority Act. The legislative attention was elsewhere.

The amendment came into force on 13 November 2025 via Gazette Notification G.S.R. 843(E). The change is now operative.

The Text: Before and After

The structural difference between the old and new provision is visible in a direct comparison.

Section 8(1)(j) of the Right to Information Act, 2005 | before and after Section 44(3) of the DPDP Act, 2023
Before | original text (in force 2005 to 13 Nov 2025)
information which relates to personal information the disclosure of which has no relationship to any public activity or interest, or which would cause unwarranted invasion of the privacy of the individual unless the Central Public Information Officer or the State Public Information Officer or the appellate authority, as the case may be, is satisfied that the larger public interest justifies the disclosure of such information
64 words  ·  conditional exemption  ·  PIO discretion retained
After | substituted text (in force from 13 Nov 2025)
information which relates to personal information
6 words  ·  absolute exemption  ·  no discretion, no test
Figure 1. The substitution reduced the provision from a qualified, discretionary clause to an unqualified absolute exemption. The six remaining words contain no condition, no test, and no override.

The word count difference is not the substantive point. What the shorter text removed is.

Three Elements Removed

The original clause contained three distinct legal mechanisms. Each served a different function. The new clause contains none of them.

What the substitution removed from the legal architecture of Section 8(1)(j)
✕
The Public Activity Test
Personal information could only be withheld if its disclosure had "no relationship to any public activity or interest." If the information related to a public official acting in a public capacity, the exemption did not apply as a matter of law. The PIO was required to make that determination.
Removed
✕
The Unwarranted Invasion Test
Even where information was personal, withholding required a finding that disclosure would cause an "unwarranted invasion of the privacy of the individual." Warranted invasions of privacy in the public interest were contemplated and permitted. Unwarranted ones were not. The distinction required judgment.
Removed
✕
The Public Interest Override
Where a PIO was satisfied that the larger public interest justified disclosure, the exemption did not apply. This was the proportionality mechanism: the clause acknowledged that privacy and transparency are both legitimate interests and required a decision-maker to weigh them case by case.
Removed
✓
The Appeal Path
First appeal to the designated senior officer, second appeal to the Information Commission, and High Court writ under Article 226 remain available. The amendment changes the substantive test a PIO applies; it does not eliminate the procedural routes for challenging a denial. Their practical effectiveness is a separate question.
Survives
Figure 2. The three elements removed were not redundant safeguards. Each addressed a distinct category of case: information tied to public duties, privacy invasions that are proportionate, and situations where public interest outweighs individual privacy.

The government's stated defence is that Section 3 of the DPDP Act exempts from the Act's scope personal data made publicly available under a legal obligation. The argument is that information which authorities are legally required to disclose remains disclosable under RTI because DPDP does not apply to it. Critics respond that Section 44(3) directly amends the RTI Act text itself, creating a statutory obligation to withhold that sits alongside any disclosure obligation. Where those two obligations conflict, the hierarchy is unresolved. That is precisely what the constitutional challenge argues.

The Incentive Architecture Problem

The most consequential effect of the amendment may not be in the text itself. It is in what the text does to the incentive structure of the officer responsible for applying it.

Under the original provision, a Public Information Officer weighing a request for personal information faced a symmetric accountability structure. Wrongful denial could lead to penalties under Section 20 of the RTI Act: up to Rs 25,000 and a recommendation for disciplinary action. Wrongful disclosure could expose the PIO to departmental consequences. Both risks existed. The law expected the PIO to exercise judgment and accept responsibility for it.

The PIO's decision calculus | how the incentive structure changed on 13 November 2025
Before | balanced structure
Incentive to disclose
RTI penalty for wrongful denial: up to Rs 25,000 + disciplinary recommendation (S20). Appellate and Commission scrutiny of denial decisions.
Incentive to deny
Departmental consequences for disclosure that embarrasses the authority. No statutory penalty for wrongful disclosure under RTI.
Rational response
Exercise judgment. Apply the public activity test and public interest test. Accept accountability for the decision.
After | asymmetric structure
Incentive to disclose
RTI penalty for wrongful denial: unchanged at Rs 25,000. However, the new absolute exemption makes "wrongful denial" harder to establish. The PIO can point to the amended text.
Incentive to deny
DPDP penalty for wrongful disclosure: up to Rs 250 crore (S8(5), security safeguards). Although the Data Protection Board is not yet constituted, the statutory liability exists. The asymmetry is structural, not temporary.
Rational response
Default denial. The amended text supports it. The upside risk of disclosure (Rs 250 crore statutory exposure) materially exceeds the downside risk of denial (Rs 25,000 penalty that requires an appeal to trigger).
The DPDP Board is not yet constituted. The Rs 250 crore liability is already in the statute. The rational institutional response to asymmetric risk is institutional caution, not judgment.
Figure 3. The amendment did not simply restrict a right. It restructured the incentive architecture facing every PIO in India. The Data Protection Board's absence does not neutralise this effect: statutory liability does not require an enforcement body to change behaviour.

This is not a prediction about individual officer behaviour. It is an observation about what rational institutional actors do when the penalty structure becomes asymmetric. The Rs 250 crore figure is real. The Board that would impose it is not yet constituted. But the statute is in force. A PIO advising their organisation on whether to disclose information characterised as personal now faces a liability ceiling that did not exist before 13 November 2025.

The Constitutional Tension

Two fundamental rights are in conflict here. The right to information flows from Article 19(1)(a), freedom of speech and expression: access to government-held information has been recognised as integral to that right. The right to privacy derives from Article 21, as established by the Supreme Court in K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India (2017). Neither right is constitutionally superior to the other. They are both fundamental.

The original Section 8(1)(j) embodied a legislative answer to the conflict: a proportionality mechanism. It did not declare a winner. It required a decision-maker to weigh the two rights case by case, with the public interest capable of overriding privacy where the facts warranted it. That is how constitutional systems typically resolve conflicts between fundamental rights of equal rank.

The amended clause removes the weighing mechanism without replacing it. Privacy wins absolutely, in every case where information can be characterised as personal. The Puttaswamy judgment itself requires that any restriction on a fundamental right satisfy a proportionality test: it must serve a legitimate aim, use the least restrictive means, and include safeguards against misuse. The petitioners challenging Section 44(3) argue that an unqualified absolute exemption fails that test on its face.

Where It Stands

Three petitions challenging Section 44(3) are before the Supreme Court: The Reporters Collective Trust, RTI activist Venkatesh Nayak, and the National Campaign for People's Right to Information. The Court has issued notice to the Union Government and referred the matter to a larger bench. No interim stay has been granted.

The Data Protection Board, which would enforce DPDP's penalty schedule, has not been constituted. Most substantive DPDP provisions are deferred to mid-2027. Section 44(3), however, is not one of the deferred provisions. It was specifically operationalised in November 2025 separately from the main DPDP framework.

The government's position is that the amendment does not restrict legitimate public-interest disclosures because DPDP's own scope exemptions preserve them. The petitioners' position is that the RTI Act text has been directly amended, creating a legal obligation that overrides any argument about DPDP's scope. The Constitution Bench will determine which reading is correct.

Until it does, the operative legal position is the amended text. A PIO who denies a request for personal information citing the amended Section 8(1)(j) is applying a provision that is currently in force and has not been stayed. A citizen who believes the denial is wrongful can appeal: first appeal within 30 days to the designated officer, second appeal to the Information Commission, and High Court writ under Article 226 if the Commission's order is unsatisfactory. The appeal path exists. Its practical effectiveness, given Information Commission backlogs and the reduced independence of Commissioners since the 2019 RTI Amendment Act, is a separate question addressed in the companion article to this one.

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