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Supreme Court: Madhya Pradesh's Special Police Establishment is not exempt from the RTI Act; 2011 exemption notification struck down
- Court
- Supreme Court of India
- Date of judgment
- 15 June 2026
- Case
- 2026 INSC 644
- Parties
- SPECIAL POLICE ESTABLISHMENT Vs KAMTA PRASAD MISHRA AND OTHERS
- Bench
- J.K. MAHESHWARI
- Outcome
- Dismissed
Summary
A Town Inspector who was caught in a trap case by the Special Police Establishment (SPE) asked under the RTI Act for information on how sanction to prosecute him was granted. The request was refused on the basis of a 2011 State notification exempting the SPE from the RTI Act as an 'intelligence and security' organisation. The Supreme Court upheld the High Court's order and struck the notification down.
The question before the court
- Is the Madhya Pradesh Special Police Establishment an 'intelligence and security organisation' that can be exempted under Section 24(4) of the RTI Act?
- Can the validity of a notification be examined even if the petitioner did not specifically pray for its invalidation?
The court's decision
The Court held that the absence of a prayer to declare subordinate legislation invalid does not stop it from testing the validity, provided the authority gets a chance to justify it. It found that the SPE, which investigates specified offences, is not an 'intelligence and security' organisation for the purposes of Section 24(4), so the notification of 25 August 2011 excluding it from the RTI Act goes beyond the Act and is struck down. The High Court's judgment was maintained and the appeal dismissed, with the clarification that the notification continues to apply to the State Bureau of Investigation of Economic Offences, which the Court did not examine.
Provisions referred to
- Sections 8(1)(h) and 24(4), Right to Information Act, 2005
- Madhya Pradesh Special Police Establishment Act, 1947
Read the full judgment (PDF) ↗
Official source: Supreme Court of India. The PDF above is a copy from an open dataset of the court's public records.
This summary is prepared for general assistance only. It may contain errors and is not legal advice — rely on the full judgment.