After a detailed review, the ministry submitted a report to the Cabinet secretariat with various suggestions on how to go about with the Act at a time when the country has embraced a transparency law. The exercise was aimed at amending the OSA to make a seamless transition from the secrecy period of the 20th century to a modern and democratic transparency regime, PTI reported.
At that time, a core group on administrative reforms studied the ARC recommendations, which were then forwarded to a GoM for a decision.
It instead sought amendments to OSA to do away with ambiguity in punishments. A Delhi court in a judgement, in a case involving the publication of excerpts of a cabinet note in The Financial Express ten years by journalist Santanu Saikia, greatly reduced the powers of the act by ruling that the publication of a document merely labelled "secret" shall not render the journalist liable under the law.
Saikia was arrested in February in another case that the police said involved the writing of stories and analyses from documents allegedly stolen from the government.
He was released on bail in May after spending 80 days in jail. Additional sessions judge Inder Jeet Singh who had discharged Saikia relied on a Supreme Court verdict in the case of Sama Alana Abdulla versus the State of Gujarat , Singh said that the test of whether a certain disclosure compromised a secret depended on whether an "official code'' or "password'' had been divulged in terms of Section 5 of the Act, The Times of India had reported.
The report stated that the court's liberal interpretation lessened the scope for misuse of the OSA by official machinery as it made a sharp distinction between a secret document or report dealing with day-to-day routine affairs and one containing information on the sensitive issue of national security. On his part, Saikia, who argued the case himself in court, pointed out how an archaic Act was being used to harass a journalist, the report said. The Union Minister of State for Home Hansraj Ahir had said that fifty cases of violation of the Act were registered in the country since Of these 50 cases, 30 were registered in , nine in and 11 in And of the 30 cases registered in , eight were lodged in Tamil Nadu, followed by five each in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh.
Following which, his home was raided and a case was registered against him for violating the OSA, though nothing much was heard of the case since then, The Hindu reported. Later, VK Singh wrote an article detailing the "troubled legacy" of the Act. A legacy of the British Raj, it had often resulted in grave miscarriages that have blotted the record books of the judiciary and sullied our reputation among democratic nations.
Eminent jurists and civil rights activists have unequivocally voiced the opinion that the infamous statute should be scrapped.
After the enactment of the Right to Information Act in , it has no right to exist, a fact that has been pointed out by Veerappa Moily, heading the Second Administrative Reforms Commission that has already recommended its repeal. Unfortunately, the proposal was shot down by the bureaucrats in the home ministry, based on objections from the intelligence agencies.
At its worst, it could lead to complete catastrophe. We have no body to act as a mediation between the Govt and the Journalist to make a balanced determination, and even if we did, how unbiased would they be? Not so simple. All Sections View and post jobs in journalism. In the news Platforms Publishers Interviews Marketing. International journalists face 'sinister threats' to privacy at Tokyo Olympics. GB News says it is seeing 'incredible trajectory' online as 3.
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