OFFICIAL SECRETS ACT (Syllabus: GS Paper 2 - Polity & Governance

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Context: Between 2019 and 2021, 136 people were arrested under the Official Secrets Act (OSA) and two were convicted, the government told the Rajya Sabha

Official Secrets Act (OSA)

The OSA has its roots in the Colonial era.
The original version was The Indian Official Secrets Act (Act XIV), 1889.
This was brought in with the main objective of muzzling the voice of a large number of newspapers that had come up in several languages, and were opposing the Raj’s policies, building political consciousness and facing police crackdowns and prison terms.
It was amended and made more stringent in the form of The Indian Official Secrets Act, 1904, during Lord Curzon’s tenure as Viceroy of India.
In 1923, a newer version was notified.
The Indian Official Secrets Act (Act No XIX of 1923) was extended to all matters of secrecy and confidentiality in governance in the country.
It broadly deals with two aspects - spying or espionage, covered under Section 3, and disclosure of other secret information of the government, under Section 5.
Secret information can be any official code, password, sketch, plan, model, article, note, document, or information.
Under Section 5, both the person communicating the information and the person receiving the information can be punished.
Punishments under the Act range from three years to life imprisonment (if the intent is to declare war against India - section 5).
A person prosecuted under this Act can be charged with the crime even if the action was unintentional and not intended to endanger the security of the state.
The Act only empowers persons in positions of authority to handle official secrets, and others who handle it in prohibited areas or outside them are liable for punishment.

For classifying a document, a government Ministry or Department follows the Manual of Departmental Security Instructions, 1994, not under OSA.
Also, OSA itself does not say what a “secret” document is. It is the government’s discretion to decide what falls under the ambit of a “secret” document to be charged under OSA.
It has often been argued that the law is in direct conflict with the Right to Information Act, 2005.

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