Shimla, Jan 30,
A serious constitutional challenge has been raised against the Himachal Pradesh government’s RTI online portal over the mandatory linking of Aadhaar, Him Parivar ID, ration card and family member details for filing Right to Information applications.
In a strongly worded legal notice addressed to A. Shainamol, Secretary (RPG) to the Government of Himachal Pradesh, a Shimla-based citizen Capt Atul Sharma has accused the State administration of executive overreach, constitutional fraud and illegal mass data profiling through the design of the Himachal RTI (Him Access) portal.
The notice alleges that citizens attempting to exercise their statutory right under the Right to Information Act, 2005 are being digitally coerced into furnishing Aadhaar numbers or family-linked identifiers as a precondition for filing RTI applications.
Calling the practice “coercion masquerading as consent,” the notice asserts that the Right to Information is a statutory extension of Article 19(1)(a) and cannot be conditioned on biometric or family database seeding. It argues that RTI is neither a subsidy nor a welfare benefit and therefore falls completely outside the scope of Section 7 of the Aadhaar Act, which applies only to services funded from the Consolidated Fund of India.
The letter further states that forced consent obtained under threat of denial of RTI access is legally void, citing violations of the right to privacy under Article 21 and the Supreme Court’s Puttaswamy judgments. Any personal data collected through such means, it claims, would amount to illegally obtained information.
A key concern highlighted is the alleged unlegislated linkage of RTI applicants with the Him Parivar database, which the notice terms as mass profiling and surveillance without statutory backing. It states that no law passed by the Himachal Pradesh legislature authorises cross-departmental pooling of family data or permanent identity tagging of citizens seeking information from the State.
The notice also warns of criminal liability for officials involved in approving and enforcing the system, citing provisions relating to abuse of authority, unlawful data use and breach of trust under the IPC/BNS and the Information Technology Act. It explicitly states that denial or obstruction of RTI access due to non-submission of Aadhaar would amount to constitutional injury.
Four immediate demands have been placed before the state government: removal of Aadhaar and family identifiers as mandatory RTI fields, a public clarification that RTI applications will not be denied for lack of such details, cessation of data seeding with the Him Parivar database, and fixing responsibility on officers who operationalised the system without legal sanction.
The notice cautions that failure to act would compel affected citizens to initiate constitutional litigation under Article 226 and pursue criminal proceedings against individual officers, noting that “acting under orders” would not be a valid defence.
As of now till.fil8ng of thos report, the State government has not issued any official response to the notice.
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The HimachalScape Bureau comprises seasoned journalists from Himachal Pradesh with over 25 years of experience in leading media conglomerates such as The Times of India and United News of India. Known for their in-depth regional insights, the team brings credible, research-driven, and balanced reportage on Himachal’s socio-political and developmental landscape.
