The texts ask for documents. The Supreme Court has held that the Act gives access to information that exists, and does not oblige an office to explain or draw inferences (CBSE v Aditya Bandopadhyay, (2011) 8 SCC 497, para 35), and that an applicant cannot ask why an order was passed (Khanapuram Gandaiah, (2010) 2 SCC 1, para 6). So the question of who gave an order is put as a request for the order, the log entry and the record that shows the post of the officer who recorded it. If no such record is held, the text asks the office to say so and to name the record in which the deployment was noted. A reply of that kind is itself evidence here.

They ask for posts. Section 8(1)(j) now reads “information which relates to personal information”, without the public-interest test it used to carry, since the Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023 amended it. A Supreme Court challenge is pending with no stay. Each text asks for designation, rank and unit, and asks the office to sever personal particulars under section 10 and to release the rest of the document.

• Email alone is not a filing. Rule 3 of the 2012 Rules ties the application to a Rs 10 fee, and we found no order holding an unpaid email valid. File on the portal named in the block, or by post with the fee. Where an office publishes a PIO email we offer a courtesy copy, and say it is only that.
• Central and state portals are different. rtionline.gov.in takes central bodies, Delhi Police and the union-territory police forces, and returns state applications without refund. Each state has its own portal and fee.
• Gaps are marked. Most government sites refused the network these details were gathered on. Where a portal, fee or officer is not shown, we did not verify it, and we do not guess. Check the live page before you pay.
• The 48-hour rule is not claimed. It covers life or liberty, and nothing we read supports using it for an event that is over. These are 30-day requests.
• Old records may be gone. Delhi Police’s own published manual says the daily diary is destroyed ten years after its last entry and PCR distress-call records after three years. Station CCTV must be kept for 18 months (Paramvir Singh Saini, 2020). A reply that a record is no longer held is a finding, and we want it.
• If the office refuses or is silent for 30 days, the first appeal (within 30 days, free on the central portal) is the route to the record, then the second appeal to the Information Commission within 90 days. A complaint to the Commission cannot order the record disclosed (CIC v State of Manipur, 2011).
• Tell us. Send the registration number and, later, the reply. A reply, a refusal, a transfer and a silence are all entered in the RTI log.