OFFICIAL SECRETS ACT

Sept. 21, 2020

The Delhi police has arrested Rajeev Sharma, a journalist, under the Official Secrets Act (OSA). The police claimed that he had passed on information such as the deployment of Indian troops on the border to Chinese intelligence officers.

About:

Official Secrets Act has its roots in the British colonial era. The original version was The Indian Official Secrets Act (Act XIV), 1889.
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.