ORDER :- This petition/criminal revi­sion application, presented by the State of Maharashtra, is directed against a judgment and order of the learned Additional Sessions Judge, Greater Bombay, dated 26-4-1991. Through this petition, the State of Maha­rashtra has assailed the correctness of the order of the learned Additional Sessions Judge whereby the respondent, whom I shall refer to as "the Accused", has been discharged of certain offences punishable under the Official Secrets Act, 1923 and the Atomic Energy Act, 1962 a few facts that are relevant for the decision of this criminal revision application are alone being recounted by me. I need to prefix this judgment with the obser­vations that this particular litigation has been preceded by a score of petitions addressed to the different Courts before which the prose­cution was pending, to the High Court and, on more than one occasion, to the Supreme Court. The matter has been vigorously con­tested and it has been the contention of the Accused that the reason for this contest is because the Prosecution was motivated and that the viciousness with which the proceedings continued right up to the present stage was because of an element of personal vendetta. I shall have occasion to make my observations with regard to these aspects of the case in the course of the judgment because they are relevant. Normally, there would have been no reference to this aspect at the initial stage of the judgment, but there appears a degree of justification in this charge and it is for this reason that it is being referred to by me.

2. Coming first to the background and the relevant facts. The Accused before me, Dr. B. K. Subbarao, is a senior member of the Armed Forces having joined the Indian Navy on 15-7-1962 as a Sub-Lieutenant and having finally parted company with the Navy on 27-­10-1987 when he opted for premature retire­ment, at which time he was holding the rank of a Captain. There are references on record to indicate that the Accused followed up a brilliant academic career with an even more distinguished service record in the course of which his talents and expertise and profi­ciency in the field of computers and sophisti­cated fields of communication were com­mended and it was for this reason that he came to be associated with certain prestigious and important assignments. The Accused opted for premature retirement, as indicated by me, and it appears from the record that he was thereafter doing certain assignments for CEAT Tyres India Ltd. and some other commercial organisations. On the night of 30th May 1988, the Accused was leaving for New York by an Air India flight when it is alleged that the Customs Officers at the Airport decided to check his baggage. It is further alleged that in the course of the baggage check, certain documents are alleged to have been found in his possession and these documents are supposed to have had certain nothings on them that they were secret docu­ments. According to the Prosecution a Panchnama was drawn up and the Inspector of Police, Sahar Airport Police Station, was requested to take over the matter because the Customs Authorities, prima facie, felt that the Accused ought not to have been in possession of these documents and that, consequently, the situation was actionable. The Police Authorities placed the Accused under arrest, and in the course of the investigations they are alleged to have searched the respondent­ Accused and it is their case that several other documents of an equally confidential nature were found in the course of that search. The Investigating Officer thereupon obtained certain authorisation that were necessary from Central Government, completed the investigations and submitted a charge-sheet before the local Magistrate. The Investigating Officer also took note of the fact that the special statutes under which the Accused had been charged required a special procedure to be adopted and he, therefore, in compliance with that p