Official secere act.

1. Ex-diplomat Madhuri Gupta charged with spying :

NEW DELHI: Paving the way for her trial, a trial court on Sautrday framed charges against suspended Indian diplomat Madhuri Gupta under various sections of official secrets Act and criminal conspiracy for alleged spying and supplying information to an ISI agent when she was posted in Islamabad.

Gupta, 55, has already spent around 21 months behind the bars as she was arrested on April 22, 2010 by the Special Cell of Delhi Police. It was alleged that Gupta revealed certain classified information to Pakistani officials and was in touch with two ISI officials, Mubshar Raza Rana and Jamshed. She was posted as Second Secretary (Press and Information) in the Indian High Commission in Islamabad.

The chargesheet filed in July 2010 alleged that Gupta was involved in a relationship with Jamshed whom she planned to marry. She used to communicate with Jamshed who had a code name 'Jim'. The diplomat was using a computer installed at her residence in Islamabad and a Blackberry phone to be in touch with the two Pakistani spies, it said.

2. Amend Official Secrets Act, says Iftikar Geelani

What are the damages Kashmiri journalist Iftikar Geelani would like to claim for needlessly suffering seven months of imprisonment?

Mr Geelani said he had been made a scapegoat by a section of intelligence agencies bent on intimidating journalists in Kashmir. He added that his case showed "how easily anyone can be prosecuted" under the act, which provides for 14 years' imprisonment for a convicted person.

In his case, the 'sensitive' material that intelligence agencies had accused him of possessing had been downloaded from a website and was freely available on the Internet as well as in university libraries, Mr Geelani said.

The fact that the intelligence agencies could ask for his prosecution on such flimsy grounds should serve as a "wake-up call for journalists", Mr Geelani said. "I was lucky to have friends who could ask politicians for help. What will happen to a journalist in a small town?" he asked.
Mr Geelani pointed out that to prosecute a person under the Official Secrets Act, the agencies did not have to show that the person was guilty. Mere possession of a supposedly incriminating document was enough, he added
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3.An "Invalid" Act?

Here's the untold story of the Official Secrets Act (OSA) 1923:

•    It was passed in April 1923 by the Legislative Council.

•    The Act was never notified in the Gazette of India.


•    To become law, every Act must be notified in the Gazette of India. The National Archives of India, ministries of Home and Law say they are not in possession of any such notification. None exists in the 1923 Gazette of India either.

•    The OSA was amended twice, in 1951 and 1967, and made more stringent. But only the amendments were notified in the 'Extraordinary Gazette of India'.

•    Legal luminaries say that if an Act is not notified, it is an "invalid" law.
         
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Why The British Wanted OSA In 1923

•    Bolsheviks could fester unrest in India directly or indirectly

•    They have "increased our troubles on the North West Frontier and Waziristan". This could "lead to a rupture with Afghanistan".

•    Prominent "Mussalman" leaders have shown sympathy with the Afghans. Unwise to disregard possibility of "fanatical Muslims in India" acting in sympathy with them.

•    Increased Japanese activity in Burma calls for better means for "obtaining information"

•    Post- (First World) War enemy powers are out to ferret secrets

•    In the event of a war between Japan and America, the former may try to arouse Indian feelings against the British Empire

•    There are no existing laws to deal effectively with such activities

4. Convicted lensman wanted to pass on navy secrets to Pak

MUMBAI: A fortnight after a sessions court convicted 35-year-old Qamar Shafi Afghani, under the Official Secrets Act, a 54-page detailed judgment copy was made available to him. On July 26, sessions judge Sadhana Malpani Pawar sentenced him to five years' rigorous imprisonment for carrying out a recce around the coast off the Gateway of India and clicking 52 photographs of naval vessels stationed off the local base.

Afghani could not provide a satisfactory answer as to why he was in possession of the sensitive documents relating to the IAF and Naval Command.

Finding Afghani guilty under the Official Secrets Act, the court observed, "It appears that his purpose for keeping all those documents in his possession was for the purpose prejudicial to the safety of the state. He must have had the intention of sending the photographs and documents, which are concerned with defence of India, to its enemy country Pakistan." The ATS that arrested Afghani in 2007 had early on suspected his links with the ISI.