Islamabad: The National Assembly on Tuesday approved a bill to alter the Official Secrets Act of 1923, which calls for a maximum sentence of three years in prison for anyone who divulges the identities of intelligence agency personnel, informants, or sources. The “Official Secrets (Amendment) Bill, 2023″ was proposed by Minister of Parliamentary Affairs Murtaza Javed Abbasi. According to the bill’s Statement of Objects and Reasons, “it is imperative to amend the Official Secrets Act, 1923, and make it more effective in view of the changing social milieu to ensure the safety and security of official documents.”
The bill, a copy of which is available media, proposes adding Section 6-A (unauthorised 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”.
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, organisation, entity, association or group guilty of a particular act tending to show a purpose that is prejudicial to the interest and safety of Pakistan”.
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”.
It further suggested adding Section 12-A (investigations) to the law. The proposed amendment states that an investigating officer under the act “shall be an officer of the Federal Investigating Agency” who would be designated by the FIA director general for investigation.
“If the FIA DG deems it suitable, he may constitute a Joint Investigation Team, convened by such officer and consisting of other such officers of intelligence agencies.”
It added that FIA would have to complete the investigation of cases “triable by the court established” within 30 working days.
The bill also proposed including Section 12-B (admissibility of material collected) under which “all material collected during the course of inquiry or investigation, including electronic devices, data, information, documents, or such other material which facilitates the commission to any offence under this Act, shall be admissible”.
