Mentoring Desk: In the last week of the PDM government, the National Assembly passed an amendment bill titled Official Secrets Act, 1923 proposing three years in jail for disclosing the identity of members of intelligence agencies.
According to Daily Dawn Newspaper, the bill, titled “Official Secrets (Amendment) Bill, 2023”, was moved by Parliamentary Affairs Minister Murtaza Javed Abbasi.
The bill added an additional definition for “enemy” in Section 8-A, which would mean “any person who is directly or indirectly, intentionally or unintentionally working for or engaged with the foreign power, foreign agent, non-state actor, organization, entity, association or group guilty of a particular act tending to show a purpose that is prejudicial to the interest and safety of Pakistan”.
The bill proposes adding Section 6-A (unauthorized disclosure of identities) to the act, under which “a person shall commit an offence who intentionally acting in any manner prejudicial to public order, safety, interests, or defence of Pakistan, or any part therefore, discloses in such a manner that exposes the identity of such undisclosed persons in any manner the identity of the members of intelligence agencies, informants or sources thereof”. It proposes imprisonment for a term of up to three years and a fine extending to Rs10 million.
The bill says that any person who “abets, incites, conspires or attempts to commit the offence shall be liable to the same punishment”.
It also proposed substituting Section 9 (attempts or incitement to offences), by stating that anyone who “incites, conspires, attempts, aids or abets the commission of an offence would be punished with the same penalty and liable to be proceeded against in the same manner as if they had committed the offence”.
Moreover, the bill added subsection 2-A to Section 11 (search warrants) which said that intelligence agencies may now “at any time, enter and search any person or place, without warrant, and if necessary, by use of force, and seize any document … or anything which is or can be evidence of an offence committed, or suspecting of been committed”.
