Question

What is official secret act 1923?

Answer 1

The Official secret Act 1923 is India's anti espionage ("Spy" and "Secret agent") act held over from British colonisation. It states clearly that actions which involves helping an enemy state against India. It also states that one cannot approach, inspect, or even pass over a prohibited government site or area. According to this Act, helping the enemy state can be in the form of communicating a sketch, plan, model of an official secret, or of official codes or passwords, to the enemy.

Answer 2

Answer:

The Official Secrets Act 1923 is the anti-espionage act of India held over from the British colonial period. The objective is to prevent helping an enemy state against India and that no one can approach, inspect, or even pass over a prohibited government site or area. It extends to the whole of India and applies also to servants of the Government and to citizens of India outside India. It became a contentious issue after the implementation of the Right to Information Act since the Official Secret Act does not define “secret” or “official secrets”. But public servants could deny any information terming it a “secret” when asked under the RTI Act.

According to this Act, helping the enemy state can be in the form of communicating a sketch, plan, model of an official secret, or of official codes or passwords, to the enemy. In this Act, unless there is anything repugnant in the subject or context--

(1) any reference to a place belonging to Government includes a place occupied by any department of the Government, whether the place is or is not actually vested in Government;

(2) expressions referring to communicating or receiving include any communicating or receiving, whether in whole or in part, and whether the sketch, plan, model, article, note, document, or information itself, or the substance, effect or description thereof only be communicated or received; expressions referring to obtaining or retaining any sketch, plan, model, article, note or document, include the copying or causing to be copied of the whole or any part of any sketch, plan, model, article, note or document; and expressions referring to the communication of any sketch, plan, model, article, note or document include the transfer or transmission of the sketch, plan, model article, note or document.