Hyderabad: A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) before the Telangana High Court has laid bare a near-total collapse of the state’s online Right to Information system, with official data showing 99.48 per cent of registered public authorities do not respond to citizens through the portal (rti.telangana.gov.in).
The PIL was filed by Banappagari Vinay Reddy, a Medak-based law student, who argued the case in person. His petition draws on data he obtained through his own RTI applications to the Information Technology, Electronics and Communications Department.
According to that data, 3,323 public authorities have been added to the Telangana RTI Online Portal since its launch in December 2022, but only 17 actually use it to respond to applicants. Between December 2023 and 2025, the portal received 17,865 RTI applications, of which officials disposed of just 377, a disposal rate of 2.1 per cent. The picture is starker for appeals: 2,502 first appeals have been filed through the portal, and not one has been resolved.
Reddy told a local news outlet that he has been filing RTI applications since completing his intermediate education in 2015-16, and turned to the court after years of frustration with a system that gave him no way to track his applications.
The petition also flags that the Telangana Information Commission does not conduct hearings virtually, forcing appellants from remote districts such as Adilabad and Khammam to travel to Hyderabad. It cites the Supreme Court’s directions in Pravasi Legal Cell versus Union of India, which call for RTI portals to be made functional across states. It contends the state has ignored these directions for over two years.
Reddy had also asked the court to direct that the design, development and hosting of the portal be handed over to the National Informatics Centre. A Bench of Justices P Sam Koshy and Narsing Rao Nandikonda, however, clarified that this particular prayer would not fall within the scope of the PIL.
The Bench granted the state government one week to file a counter affidavit on the remaining issues. The matter is next listed for hearing on August 3.
