Telangana plea: 1.16 lakh government orders not public

A plea filed before the Telangana High Court alleges that the state government has failed to make public over 1.16 lakh government orders issued since June 2014, despite earlier court directions to upload them online. The writ petition was filed by Hyderabad-based RTI activist B Vinay Reddy and is pending before Justice Surepalli Nanda.

The case, titled B Vinay Reddy v The State of Telangana and Others, cites the state government's own reply to the Legislative Assembly in March 2025. The ITE&C Department had said, in reply to Starred Question No. 1036, that 1,99,115 government orders were issued between June 2, 2014 and March 14, 2025, of which only 82,657 were available in the public domain. The plea says this means 1,16,458 government orders, about 58.5 per cent, are not accessible to the public.

The petition asks the court to direct the government to upload every government order issued since the state's formation on June 2, 2014 to the GOIR portal. The GOIR portal is the state's online register of government orders, and its Public Domain View is the section citizens can access.

The figures cited in the plea come from the government's reply to the Assembly and from RTI replies, including one filed by former minister T Harish Rao. Harish Rao described the December 2025 order as "a slap in the face of the so-called people's government."

Fewer than one in five recent government orders are public

A reply to an application under the RTI Act dated November 18, 2025 showed that of the 19,064 government orders issued between December 7, 2023 and January 26, 2025, only 3,290 were available in the public domain. The plea argues that citizens are being kept from government decisions that may affect their rights.

Government orders marked 'internal' without reasons

The plea alleges that state departments classify government orders as either 'public' or 'internal' on the GOIR portal. It says departments withhold orders without issuing reasoned orders citing Sections 8 or 9 of the RTI Act, which set out the grounds for denying access to information.

"A Government Order which is kept out of the public domain cannot be known, obeyed, questioned or relied upon by the citizen whose rights it affects," the plea says.

Earlier Telangana High Court orders and a pending contempt case

The petition recalls that the High Court directed the state in 2017 to upload all pending orders within eight weeks. The court issued similar directions on March 10, 2022 and December 23, 2025, but the petition says the directions have not been fully carried out.

In December 2025, the court ordered the government to immediately disclose all orders, circulars, rules and notifications issued over the previous two years, after an RTI reply showed that only 17 per cent of the orders issued in the first 13 months of the Congress government's tenure were public. Justice Nanda said citizens had an unquestionable right to access government decisions and policies that affect public life, and that transparency was not optional but a constitutional obligation.

A contempt case over the alleged non-compliance is also pending before the court, which issued notice before admission on July 24, 2026. The plea is being heard by Justice Surepalli Nanda, who also heard the earlier plea by BRS leader Errolla Srinivas that led to the December 2025 order.