New Delhi: The Supreme Court has upheld a Madhya Pradesh High Court direction requiring the Special Police Establishment (SPE) of the Lokayukta Organisation to disclose information sought under the Right to Information Act, 2005, while simultaneously striking down a 2011 State Government notification that had purported to exempt the SPE wholesale from the RTI regime. The Court held that the SPE is not an “intelligence and security organisation” within the meaning of Section 24(4) of the RTI Act and, therefore, cannot constitutionally claim such exemption.
A Bench of Justices J.K. Maheshwari and Atul S. Chandurkar delivered the judgment.
The first respondent, Kamta Prasad Mishra, was serving as a Town Inspector at Police Station Madhav Nagar, Katni, when he was implicated by the SPE, Bhopal, in a trap case under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988. An FIR was registered on 11 April 2017, and the Home Department granted sanction for his prosecution on 20 May 2020. Seeking to understand the decision-making process behind the grant of sanction, Mishra filed an RTI application on 1 July 2020 under Section 6(1) of the RTI Act.
The request was refused. The State Information Commission upheld the refusal on 16 December 2020, accepting the SPE’s contention that disclosure was barred by Section 8(1)(h) of the RTI Act and by a notification dated 25 August 2011 issued by the General Administration Department of Madhya Pradesh under Section 24(4), which had declared the provisions of the Act inapplicable to the SPE. The Madhya Pradesh High Court, however, found that the investigation had been completed and a chargesheet had already been filed. Consequently, it held that the exemption under Section 8(1)(h) was unavailable and directed the authorities to furnish the information within thirty days.
Before the Supreme Court, the SPE placed heavy reliance on the 2011 notification, contending that it operated as a blanket exclusion of the SPE from the RTI Act’s reach. This reliance prompted the Court to examine a question that the first respondent had not formally challenged: whether the notification itself was valid.
The Court held that Section 24(4) of the RTI Act permits a State Government to exempt only such organisations as qualify as “intelligence and security organisations.” The Second Schedule to the Act, which catalogues analogous Central Government-exempted bodies, includes organisations whose core functions relate to intelligence and security—such as the Directorate of Enforcement, the Central Reserve Police Force, the Border Security Force, the Central Industrial Security Force, the National Investigation Agency, and others.
By contrast, the SPE was constituted under Section 2(1) of the Madhya Pradesh Special Police Establishment Act, 1947, solely to investigate offences notified under Section 3 of that Act, presently confined to offences under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, Sections 409 and 420, and Chapter XVIII of the Indian Penal Code.
The Lokayukt and Up-Lokayukt, of which the SPE is the investigative arm, are likewise restricted to inquiring into “allegations” of corruption or misconduct against public servants, as defined under Section 2(b) of the Madhya Pradesh Lokayukt Evam Up-Lokayukt Adhiniyam, 1981. Neither the Lokayukt nor the SPE exercises any intelligence or security-related functions.
Accordingly, the Court held that the SPE could not, by any stretch of interpretation, be characterised as an “intelligence and security organisation” within the meaning of Section 24(4). It therefore declared that the notification dated 25 August 2011, insofar as it sought to exclude the SPE from the RTI Act’s purview, was bad in law.
The Court also noted that the Allahabad High Court had reached a similar conclusion in Dr. Nutan Thakur v. State of U.P. (decided on 2 November 2017), where it invalidated an analogous notification exempting the Uttar Pradesh Lokayukt from the RTI regime.
Addressing the propriety of examining the issue suo motu, the Court considered the argument that the first respondent had never specifically challenged the 2011 notification in his writ petition before the High Court. Relying on earlier decisions, including Bihar Rajya Dafadar Chaukidar Panchayat (Magadh Division) v. State of Bihar and Bharathidasan University v. All India Council for Technical Education, the Court held that constitutional courts possess the power to strike down subordinate legislation that is clearly inconsistent with the parent statute, even in the absence of a specific challenge. However, the State must first be afforded a fair opportunity to justify and defend the impugned law.
The Court found that this requirement had been satisfied. On 14 May 2026, it had expressed prima facie doubts regarding the notification and invited the State to clarify its position. Thereafter, on 20 May 2026, Senior Advocate Ms. Manisha Karia and Advocate General Mr. Prashant Singh addressed detailed submissions and filed written arguments on behalf of the State. The Court therefore concluded that all procedural requirements for the exercise of its suo motu powers had been duly observed.
On the issue of Section 8(1)(h), the Court affirmed the High Court’s reasoning that information relating to the process of granting sanction for prosecution—namely, correspondence and deliberations that had already crystallised into a final decision—could not be withheld on the ground that disclosure would impede an investigation that had already concluded with the filing of a chargesheet.
The Court clarified that its ruling on the 2011 notification was confined to the SPE component of the notification. The notification’s second limb, which sought to exclude the State Bureau of Investigation of Economic Offences from the RTI Act’s operation, was not under challenge and was therefore left undisturbed.
Counsel for the appellant (SPE): Mr. Nishant Katneshwarkar.
Counsel for the first respondent: Mr. Naveen Kumar Singh.
Counsel for the State of Madhya Pradesh: Ms. Manisha Karia, Senior Advocate, and Mr. Prashant Singh, Advocate General.
Case: Special Police Establishment v. Kamta Prasad Mishra and Others (Citation: 2026 INSC 644).
