The single judge bench of Justice Suraj Govindaraj was hearing a batch of writ petitions challenging the blacklisting orders passed by KIC against multiple RTI activists.

The Court expressed serious concern over the alleged misuse of RTI Act, noting that a few individuals have filed thousands of appeals, clogged the system and affecting administration. To address the issue at hand, the court passed the following directions:

“…. Each of the petitioners is hereby directed to file a detailed affidavit before this Court within 30 days from today (i.e., on or before September 21, 2026). The affidavit shall specifically detail the following: i) the total number of applications/appeals filed, ii) the date on which each application was filed, iii) the authority before whom each application was filed, iv) the specific documents and information sought in each application, v) the reasons for which the information was sought and vi) the purpose/place for which the said information/documents are intended to be utilized.”

The additional directions issued are as follows:

“The Karnataka Information Commission is directed to furnish a complete list of all the appeals filed by each of the petitioners before the Commission. This list shall be furnished to the respective petitioners on or before August 28, 2026. In view of the submissions made by Sri G.B. Sharath Gowda that the petitioners are insisting on the disposal of their appeals despite the pendency of these writ petitions, it is clarified that the Karnataka Information Commission need not proceed with the hearing/disposal of the appeals that are pending before it, which are the subject matter of these petitions, until further orders of this Court….”

When the matter was taken up initially, the Court expressed strong reservations about the sheer volume of applications/appeals filed by the petitioners before the Public Information Officers and KIC. When one petitioner- Jagadeesh M-who is a lawyer and Zilla Parishad member, claimed to have filed 1,294 appeals over six years seeking information about welfare schemes, the bench remarked:

“…So, at the rate of one application a day. This dumping of applications is not good. The issue happening is that they are not able to work because they are only looking at your applications, some of the information available on website that also, you are applying for”.

Subsequently, the court also noted that one petitioner- Davalsab M- had filed 14,774 second appeals before the Commission, while another fortnightly magazine owner-G R Sudheendra- had filed 6,482 appeals.

The bench orally observed,

“…9600 grievances cannot be genuine. No person can have 9600 grievances, then he has a lot of trouble in life…. Firstly, it will affect the functioning of administrative mechanism. It is not just RTI applications, there are other works also…Secondly, genuine applications are pending…Thirdly, the benefit of legislation if its misused will go…Like any good legislation if its misused it will create problems, if your clients are resorting to this, we have to intervene at the behest of genuine people”, the court said.

Similarly, when Sudheendra claimed to be running a fortnightly magazine and filing applications for investigative journalism purposes, the bench questioned:

"Investigative Journalism is not RTI Journalism….You have to do investigative journalism, not like this. So, you are going to publish 6,700 articles [referring to similar number of RTI applications preferred by him]? How many pages does your publication have?"

The Court orally observed that while the magazine reportedly has 100-200 pages published every 14 days, the volume of applications raised serious questions about their genuineness.

The petitioners, primarily, contended in unison that since the information was not furnished initially, the petitioners filed first and second appeals before KIC in exercise of their legal rights. They argued that this exercise of legal remedy cannot be faulted, and consequently, the petitioners ought not to have been blacklisted.

However, the court also took note of the respondent counsel's submission that KIC currently has approximately 45,000 pending appeals. According to the respondents, if just four such petitioners presently before the court were weeded out, nearly 20,000 appeals would be disposed of.

Advocate G.B. Sharath Gowda, appearing for KIC further submitted that the petitioners' appeals are clogging the system and coming in the way of genuine appeals being heard. On similar lines, it was also told by the AGA for the state that the volume of applications is affecting the daily functioning of public authorities and coming in the way of proper administration.

The amicus curiae, Maitreyi Krishna, appearing in the matter submitted that there is no specific provision under the RTI Act empowering the Commission to blacklist applicants. However, the Court noted that this aspect of power of KIC to blacklist requires consideration.

The matter will be taken up again on September 28.

Case Title: G.R Sudheendra v. State of Karnataka & POther Connected Matters.

Case No: WP 17771/2026 & Ors.