The Senate on Monday unanimously adopted a resolution moved by Senator Farhatullah Babar calling upon the government to drastically amend the Official Secrets Act of 1923 and to make it consistent with the constitutionally guaranteed right to information, fair trial and fundamental rights.
Speaking on the resolution, the senator said information is being withheld even from the Parliament on the ground of it being secret or confidential, without laying down any guidelines as to who classifies a document as secret and how.
Pointing out its out-dated nature, Farhatullah Babar said Section 4 of the Act , dealing with communication with foreign agents to be evidence of certain offences says that “a person may be presumed to have been in communication with a foreign agent if he has, either within or without Pakistan visited the address of a foreign agent or consorted or associated with a foreign agent, or either within or without Pakistan, the name or address of or any other information regarding a foreign has been found in his possession or has been obtained by him from any other person”.
The expression a ‘foreign agent’, he said, includes “any person who is or has been or in respect of whom it appears that there are reasonable grounds for suspecting him of being or having been employed by a foreign power either directly or indirectly”.
Thus if a visiting card of a foreign diplomat or businessman is found in the possession of anyone and about whom the government may allege that the diplomat or businessman had sometime in the past been ‘an agent’ of a foreign power the person from whose possession the visiting card has been found would be liable to be prosecuted and declared guilty of associating with an enemy agent, he stated.
He said in India, a review of the Secrets Act has been undertaken recently and the government of Pakistan must also review the-outdated Act and bring amendments to it before the Parliament. The house unanimously adopted the resolution.