In the garb of official secrecy

Constitutional anomalies seem to have become more of a norm rather than an exception in India. Several reports have brought to light cases where laws were tweaked either by the government or the police for personal interests. Among all, the most abused Act is the widely discussed Official Secrets Act, 1923 (OSA). This was imposed by the British to protect their rule in India which later underwent tremendous transformations in Britain. Yet the Act is still on India’s statute book in its original form.

The word 'secret' is itself ill-defined in the act thus giving a free hand to the government to label anything as secret. The Act is more of a gimmick in the hands of the government to book dissenting people on flimsy grounds and is usually used as cover-up for 'dirty' secrets. Moreover, anyone can be booked under OSA even for sharing harmless information.

OSA has been intensively used to arrest people especially after the 2001 Parliament attack without any concrete evidence. The recent in the line of fire is Maj. Gen. (retd.) V K Singh who was arrested after he revealed incidents of corruption in the Research and Analysis wing (RAW) in his book titled 'India’s External Intelligence – Secrets of the Research & Analysis Wing. The moot point here is that he was not immediately arrested but action was taken three months after the release of his book, which as per the writer was merely a result of personal vendetta. In the same lines, journalist Iftikhar Geelani was arrested after Parliament attack and was eventually released after a year-long battle of mass protests. Many other random arrests were conducted on flimsy grounds like carrying hand drawn sketches of cantonment areas or having relations with foreign nationals without any verification or background check of the possessor. Many have been kept behind bars without framed charges or court trails for several years.

Although the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) does not have any record of the people arrested and convicted under this Act, but the figures revealed by the Union Home Ministry suggest that as many as 395 people have been arrested under the OSA during the last 10 years. There are 46 serving and 17 former Army personnel in various jails for the past five years for their alleged involvement with the Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI).

Interestingly, the enactment of many other laws including the much-talked about Right to Information Act (RTI) is also in direct conflict with the OSA, thus questioning the relevance of the Act in the first place. The RTI not only empowers citizens to get any information they want, it also exempts disclosure of information if it has to do with the sovereignty of the country.

Similarly, section 39 of the CrPC and certain sections of the IPC (section 302-304, section 121-126 and section 126 and 130, for instance) have provisions to deal with the integrity of the country. Alternatively, we have many other laws which are specifically dealing with the security or integrity of the nation. Obviously, a certain degree of secrecy is required for broader national interests as the present provisions of the OSA are archaic, colonial and draconian. The Act should be repealed immediately as it is not only making the road for democracy bumpy but is also serving as a breeding ground for violators to sweep the cases under the carpet.