RTI denials raise questions on India’s oil deals with Russia and US role

By A Representative 

The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has refused to disclose its correspondence with the United States government over India’s imports of Russian oil, despite senior officials publicly admitting that New Delhi acted on Washington’s advice. The refusal has triggered fresh concerns about transparency in India’s foreign and energy policy.

In August this year, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar said in Moscow that the US had asked India to “do everything to stabilise” the global energy market, “including buying oil from Russia.” Weeks earlier, the MEA spokesperson had made a similar admission. However, when transparency campaigner and RTI activist Venkatesh Nayak sought copies of this correspondence under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, the MEA declined to share the records, citing Section 8(1)(a) of the law, which allows withholding information in the interest of sovereignty, security, and foreign relations.

Nayak argued that this rejection lacked justification, particularly since the government itself had already spoken openly about the US role. “Despite the frank public admission by the MEA’s spokesperson and later on by the External Affairs Minister about being actively encouraged by the US to buy Russian oil, MEA does not want to disclose the correspondence to prove its claim before the citizenry. MEA, like many Union Ministries, is operating under the pre-RTI philosophy of sharing information on a ‘need to know’ basis instead of the ‘right to know’ philosophy which the RTI seeks to entrench,” Nayak told this correspondent.

The activist also pointed out that the MEA did not invoke Section 8(1)(f) of the RTI Act, which exempts information received confidentially from a foreign government. “So the USA might not have requested that this correspondence be kept confidential. Instead, the CPIO has invoked Section 8(1)(a) mechanically without due application of mind,” Nayak said.

According to documents accessed, the MEA declined to release the requested communications and file notings, and only directed Nayak to international trade websites for commodity data. Separate replies from its Eurasia Division revealed that Russia had stopped sharing certain trade statistics with India, raising further questions about the state of bilateral exchanges.

Nayak said he is considering an appeal against the denial.

This was not the first setback. In an earlier RTI request, Nayak had asked the Petroleum Ministry for details of foreign direct investment in the sector, notifications on special additional excise duties (SAED) on crude oil, and month-wise data of collections. The application was shuffled across multiple ministries and departments—including Petroleum, Commerce, Expenditure, Revenue, and Economic Affairs—without a clear response. Ultimately, the Central Board of Excise and Customs claimed that some of the requested details did not qualify as “information” under the RTI Act, while also simultaneously claiming the data was fiduciary and not in the public interest to disclose.

Meanwhile, government figures suggest that windfall profit taxes imposed on refined Russian oil exports fetched the exchequer nearly ₹3 lakh crore in 2022–23 and 2023–24 before the levy was withdrawn in December 2024. Calls have recently been made by some economists for the reimposition of such duties to shield Indian small businesses from the impact of US tariffs.

The contrasting availability of oil trade data abroad and its denial at home troubles transparency advocates. “Foreign journalists seem to have access to quite a bit of this information from international websites that sell oil shipping data for a price. But we are denied access by our own government in the age of RTI,” Nayak said.

Nayak, who is Director of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative in New Delhi, said the episode reflects a deeper reluctance within the Indian government to embrace the “right to know” ethos. “Nothing in the MEA’s reply explains what prejudice will be caused by disclosing the correspondence when the Ministry and the EAM have gone public on Indian and foreign soil about its existence. The public interest clause of Section 8(2) of the RTI Act remains a dead letter till date,” he said.