The Delhi High Court has held that PM Modi flight records, the Special Flight Returns of foreign visits by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Indian Air Force aircraft, are exempt from disclosure under the RTI Act, and has set aside a Central Information Commission order that directed their release after redaction.
New Delhi: The Delhi High Court has allowed a petition by the Indian Air Force and set aside a Central Information Commission (CIC) order of July 8, 2020 that directed the Air Force to furnish certified copies of Special Flight Returns (SFR-II) relating to foreign visits by India’s Prime Ministers, holding that the records are exempt under Sections 8(1)(a) and 8(1)(g) of the Right to Information Act, 2005 [Central Public Information Officer, Directorate of Personal Services, Air Headquarters, Indian Air Force v. Commodore Lokesh K Batra (Retd.)].
Justice Amit Mahajan delivered the judgment on October 15, 2026, finding that disclosure of the records could compromise the security arrangements accompanying the Prime Minister and endanger his life and physical safety, and that redacting the names of security personnel would not remove that risk.
Background
The dispute began with an RTI application filed on June 5, 2018 by retired Commodore Lokesh K Batra, seeking information on foreign visits undertaken by India’s Prime Ministers on IAF aircraft from April 1, 2013 until the date of the application. The IAF replied that former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had made no air travel on IAF aircraft between April 1, 2013 and May 25, 2014, and that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had undertaken three visits on IAF aircraft between June 4, 2016 and July 9, 2018, for which it gave travel details.
The IAF declined to supply copies of the Special Flight Returns themselves. These returns contain details of the aircraft, aircrew, passengers and the Prime Minister’s entourage, including Special Protection Group personnel. The First Appellate Authority upheld the refusal. On second appeal, the CIC directed the IAF to provide certified copies of the available and relevant SFR-II records, with the names and identifying particulars of security personnel redacted. The IAF challenged that order before the High Court.
Arguments
The IAF submitted that the records contained sensitive information and that disclosure could affect national security and endanger persons associated with the Prime Minister’s security. It pointed out that the prescribed SFR-II format goes beyond passenger names and includes designations, appointments, identification numbers, flight references, passenger strength and agency particulars, which are interconnected and could be correlated with publicly available information to identify security personnel, reveal the composition of the entourage and allow inferences about patterns of security deployment.
Batra argued that the information concerned expenditure on foreign visits undertaken with public funds and was therefore a matter of significant public interest. His counsel clarified that he was interested in details of private individuals accompanying the Prime Minister at public expense, not the identities of security personnel.
Redaction would not remove the risk
The Court accepted that removing names and other direct identifiers would not necessarily eliminate the security risk, since disclosure of successive passenger manifests could allow sensitive aspects of the Prime Minister’s security arrangements to be reconstructed by correlating the particulars with information already in the public domain.
“The potential implications of such disclosure for national security and the security apparatus accompanying the Hon’ble Prime Minister cannot be disregarded.”
Section 8(1)(a) of the RTI Act exempts information whose disclosure would prejudicially affect the security of the State, and Section 8(1)(g) covers information whose disclosure would endanger the life or physical safety of any person. The Court held that the IAF was justified in invoking both.
Public funds do not by themselves justify disclosure
Rejecting the argument built on public expenditure, the Court held that spending from the public exchequer does not override the security concerns attached to the records.
“The mere fact that public funds have been expended on the foreign visits of the Hon’ble Prime Minister does not, by itself, justify disclosure of information which may compromise the security arrangements put in place for such visits.”
The Court also held that the assessment of whether disclosure could jeopardise national security or endanger the Prime Minister falls primarily within the domain of the agencies entrusted with his security.
“This Court or the CIC cannot sit in appeal over the subjective satisfaction of the competent security agencies as to whether disclosure of particular information could jeopardise national security or endanger the life and physical safety of the Hon’ble Prime Minister.”
Referring to the Supreme Court’s reading of Section 8(2) of the RTI Act, which allows a public authority to release exempt information where the public interest in disclosure outweighs the harm to protected interests, the Court noted that the provision does not create an enforceable right to disclosure in every case. It found that no sufficient larger public interest had been shown.
“In the absence of any demonstrated larger public interest that outweighs these concerns, disclosure of the information sought cannot be directed.”
Concluding that the CIC had erred in directing disclosure of the SFR-II records after redaction, the High Court allowed the IAF’s petition and set aside the CIC order.
Why the judgment matters
The judgment marks a limit on the public-funds argument that often drives RTI requests about official travel. The Court accepted that transparency about how public money is spent is a legitimate interest, but held that it cannot by itself unlock records whose structure, even after redaction, would allow a reader to reconstruct the composition and pattern of the Prime Minister’s security cover.
It also sets out the standard of review the High Court will apply to security exemptions under Sections 8(1)(a) and 8(1)(g). Rather than re-evaluating the risk itself, the Court deferred to the satisfaction of the competent security agencies and placed the burden on the applicant to demonstrate a larger public interest under Section 8(2), a burden that Batra, in the Court’s view, did not discharge.
Case Title: Central Public Information Officer, Directorate of Personal Services, Air Headquarters, Indian Air Force v. Commodore Lokesh K Batra (Retd.)
Bench: Justice Amit Mahajan, Delhi High Court
Date of Judgment: October 15, 2026