From News Dispaches
NEW DELHI: Distinguished journalists and legal experts demanded safeguarding the citizen’s right to official information through suitable constitutional enactment.
“Journalists whose mission is to inform are particularly handicapped by the absence of such legislation and have a special responsibility to press for its immediate enactment,” the participants observed at a seminar on “Right to Information and the Official Secrets Act” organized here by the Delhi Union of Journalists (DUJ).
They called for a democratic action not only by the journalists put also professional bodies and the intelligencia of the country to compel the Government to concede to their demands.
Colonial
Arun Shourie, Indian Express Editor, challenged the constitutionality of the Official Secrets Act,
1923, describing it as “colonial.”
“The Act cannot stand the test of law,” he said. The Press should be on the lookout for a test case because the Government had not been able to prosecute even a single journalist under the Act in 42 years, he added.
“Noted lawyer Kapil Sibal observed that the Act was unconstitutional “as there were no norms no definition and no criteria about a document coming under the purview of the Act.”
In his opening remarks DJA President Balbit K, Punj said there was a pressing need to reexamine the Official Act, the Contempt of Court Act and the law with regard to parliamentary privileges. These laws were impediments to free flow of information,” he said.
Article extracted from this publication >> May 26, 1989
