A NOTE ON THE OFFICIAL SECRETS ACT, 1963
C. P. GUPTA
THE Official Secrets Act, 1923, which consolidates the law
relating to Official secrets, deals with two kinds of offence:
(1) Spying: (2) Wrongful communication etc. of secret inform-
ation.
Under section 3 of the Act, it is an offence if any person for
any purpose prejudicial to the safety or interests of the State-
(a) approaches, inspects, passes over or is in the vicinity of, or
enters any prohibited place; or (b) makes any sketch, plan, model,
or note which is calculated to be or might be or is intended to be
directly or indirectly, useful to an enerny-; or (c) obtains, collects,
records or publishes or communicates to any other person any
sketch, plan, model, article or note or other document or inform-
ation which is calculated to be or might be or is intended to be
directly or indirectly useful to an enemy.
On a prosecution for an offence punishable under the above
mentioned section with imprisonment for a term which may
extend to fourteen years it is not necessary to show that the
accused person was guilty of any particular act tending to show
a purpose prejudicial to the safety or interests of the State, and
notwithstanding that no such act is proved against him, he may
be convicted, if, from the circumstances of the case or his conduct
or his known character as proved, it appears that his purpose
was a purpose prejudicial to the safety or interests of the State;
and if any sketch, plan, model, article, note, document, or in-
formation relating to or used in any prohibited place, or relating
to anything in such a place, or any secret official code or pass
word is made, obtained, collected, recorded, published or com-
municated by any person other than a person acting under lawful
authority, and from the circumstances of the case or his conduct
or his known character as proved it appears that his purpose
1. In the parallel provision of the English Statute (The Official Secrets Act,
1911) on which the Official Secrets Act, 1923, is patterned the reference
to "enemy" has been interpreted not in the technical sense of a
country at war, but to include a potential enemy country i.e, a
country with whom there might be a war, R.Y. Parrott, (1913)8 Cr.
App, R, 186.
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was a purpose prejudicial to the safety or interests of the State,
such sketch, plan, model, article, note, document or information
shall be presumed to have been made, obtained, collected, record-
ed, published or communicated for a purpose prejudicial to the
safety or interests of the State. In State v. Captain Jagjit Singh 2
where the accused was charged with communicating military
secrets to a foreign secret agency, the Supreme Court has taken
such a grave view of the offence that they held that in the circum-
stances of the case the discretion vested in the High Court under
S. 498 of the Criminal Procedure Code to release an accused
on bail, should not have been exercised in favour of the accused..
Under section 5 of the Act, it is an offence if any person
having in his possession or control any secret official code or
pass word or any sketch, plan, model, article, or note, document
or information which relates to or is used in a prohibited place
or relates to anything in such a place, or which has been made
or obtained in contravention of this Act or which has been en-
trusted in confidence to him by any person holding governmental
office, wilfully communicates the same to any person other than
a person to whom he is authorised to communicate or it is his
duty to communicate.
It is also an offence under the same section if any person
voluntarily receives any secret official code or pass word or any
sketch, plan, model, article, note, document or information,
knowing or having reasonable ground to believe, at the time when
he receives it, that the same has been communicated in contra-
vention of the Official Secrets Act. In State of Kerala v. K. Bala-
krishna and another", the Kerala High Court held that the publi-
cation of the budget, a secret document in a newspaper (Kaumadi)
before its presentation to the State Assembly, was an offence
committed by the newspaper, its editor, printer, publisher and the
correspondent, under this provision of the Act.
Under the provisions of the Act any publication by a news-
paper of an official secret, whether in the form of a note, document
code or pass word, sketch, plan or model, makes not only the
correspondent, editor, printer and publisher, liable to punish-
ment but also every director and officer of the company or cor-
poration with whose knowledge and consent the offence was
committed becomes guilty of a like offence.
In R. K. Karanjia v. Emperors, The Bombay High Court,
while rejecting the petition of Blitz to set aside an order of the
2. A.I.R. 1962S.C. 253.
3. A.I.R. 1961 Kerala 25.
4. A.I.R. 1946 Bombay 322.
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Government of Bombay requiring the petitioner to deposit a
sum of Rs. 3000/- as security under S. 7 Sub-So (3) of the Press
Emergency Powers Act, 1931, held that to publish in a news-
paper a notice inviting people to offer "official secrets" in return
for handsome remuneration, amounted to inciting or encou-
raging people to commit an offence within the meanings of the
Press Emergency Powers Act, 1931, as it was an offence under
the Official Secrets Act to conveyor publish official secrets.
In another matter also, the press is affected by the Provisions
of the Official Secrets Act, 1923. Under Section 14 of the Act,
powers have been vested in the Courts, "in addition and without
prejudice to any powers which a court may possess", to exclude
all or any portion of the public from any proceedings under the
Act, if an application is made in the course of proceeding by the
prosecution on the ground that the publication of any evidence
to be given or of any statement to be made in the course of the
proceedings would be prejudicial to the safety of the State. Thus,
if the above mentioned conditions are satisfied the press may be
excluded from the court proceedings under the Act.
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