India’s Right to Information (RTI) Act, that was passed in 2005, has been ranked 4th best in the world, according to the latest rankings of 111 nations with such laws. The rankings were based on the strength of the legal frameworks that ensures the efficient implementation of the act. Mexico has topped  scored 136 points out of a possible total of 150, followed by Serbia and Slovenia.

India scored a total of 128 out of 150 points. While India scored well in terms of Right to Access, it lost 5 points in ‘Scope’ since the law exempts certain organizations from its ambit and also, does not explicitly include private organizations that perform a public function.

India also scored 25 out of 30 in ‘Requesting Procedures,’ since it is not free to file an application under RTI and the law does not mention anything about the unlimited reuse of information obtained through RTI.

India’s RTI law scored 26 in the ‘Exceptions’ category since the ‘harm test’ is not applicable to all the exemptions mentioned in Section 8 of the RTI Act. India scored the highest on ‘Appeals’ (29 out of 30). In the ‘Sanctions’ category, India scored 5 out of the 8, since there is no strong legal protection for whistle blowers. India scored 13 out of 16 in the ‘Promotional Measures’ category since there are no prescribed standards for record management and they are not followed in practice.