THE CHANGING PARADIGM OF RIGHT TO INFORMATION LAW

Sub theme- Conflict between right to information and official secrets act 1923

The right to information act is considered as the most powerful tool of the people of a country and
in the case of India undoubtedly it is an essential legislation in order to put a check over the
working of several agencies, this act allows the citizens of the country to request information from
any public authority about its work, actions etc. Although the official secrets act is an old
legislation of the colonial era but it’s still working as it provides the framework for dealing with
espionage, sedition and other potential threats to the integrity of the nation.

The conflict between the Right to information and the official secrets act 1923 is often seen, as
many a times several things are released which are considered as a secret by the authorities but are
also of public importance in those cases every time the right to information act prevails because of
its section 22 which shows that the Right to information act has an overriding effect over Official
secrets act. It was also seen that at a point of time official secrets act can also have a overriding
effect over Right to information as in the clause 6 of Official secrets act it is mentioned that any
information from governmental office is considered as an official information so that information
can be taken in the purview of Official secrets act. There are many cases where the conflict
between these two acts arose. This question also came before the Supreme court where supreme
court considered the right to information overriding the official secrets act. The very famous case in
this matter is the Iftikhar Gilani case where a document which is available to general public was
considered to be a secret but the military denied the same therefore there was a conflict between the
two legislations. Through this paper the author will highlight the conflict between the official
secrets act 1923 and the right to information act 2005

Priyanshu Tiwari
Army institute of law, Mohali
priyanshutiwari2001@gmail.com
8077112805