▪️Official Secrets Act(OSA) 1923:

✅Context- The Government of India threatened to invoke the Official Secrets Act and initiate “criminal action” against the publications that had run reports on the Rafael deal.

✅The Indian Official Secrets Act 1904 was enacted during the tenure of Viceroy Lord Curzon(from 1899 to 1905).

✅The law meant for ensuring secrecy and confidentiality in governance, mostly on national security and espionage issues.

✅One of the main purpose of the act was to muzzle the voice of nationalist publications.

✅The Indian Official Secrets Act (Act No. XIX of 1923) replaced the earlier act and it was extended to all matters of secrecy and confidentiality in governance in the country.

• ▪️RTI vs Official Secrets Act (OSA) 1923:

✅In 2006, Second Administrative Reforms Commission recommended that the OSA be repealed and replaced with a chapter in National Security Act containing provisions relating to official secrets, calling OSA incongruous with the regime of transparency in a democratic society.