The Supreme Court held that the Madhya Pradesh Special Police Establishment of the Lokayukt Organisation — which investigates corruption under the Prevention of Corruption Act and IPC sections 409, 420 and Chapter XVIII — is not an 'intelligence and security' organisation within Section 24(4) of the Right to Information Act, 2005, and struck down the State notification exempting it. It also held that a court may test the vires of subordinate legislation suo motu once the issue squarely arises and the State is heard.
On 15 February 2024, a five-judge Constitution Bench unanimously struck down the Electoral Bonds Scheme and the Finance Act, 2017 amendments to the RBI Act, Companies Act, Income Tax Act, and Representation of the People Act that had enabled it. The judgment held the architecture violated the voter's right to information under Article 19(1)(a), failed the proportionality test, and could not be sustained on the asserted ground of donor confidentiality. A digest of the bench, the doctrinal logic, the consequential directions to SBI to disclose bond purchase and redemption data, and what the judgment now requires.