The possession of secret information that could be useful to an enemy and prejudicial to the safety or interest of the state constitutes an offense under the Official Secrets Act, leading to conviction.

1. - This jail appeal has been preferred by Usman, who has been convicted under 3 (1) (a) and in the alternative under section 3 read with 9 of the Official Secrets Act, 1923 and sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for five years by the Additional Sessions Judge, Jaipur City, vide his judgment dated March 8, 1976.

2. The brief facts necessary for the disposal of this appeal are these. The house of Usman appellant at Jodhpur was searched and certain secret informations in his possession was recovered. The most important being a letter Ex. P. 21 and certain Secret information contained in Ex. P. 15, It was found by the handwriting expert that Ex. P. 15 was in the handwriting of the appellant. The learned Additional Sessions Judge believed the prosecution evidence and convicted the appellant. None was present on behalf of the appellant.

3. I have heard the learned Assistant Public Prosecutor and perused the record of the case carefully. Ex. P. 44 is the memo of arrest of the appellant by Dy. S. P. Shri Brij Gopal at railway station, Jodhpur on 2.6.1971 in the presence of motbirs Bhikam Chand Soni, Bansi Rajput and Chainsukh S. I. C. I. D P. W. 20 Brijgopal deposed to about the arrest and his statement is further corroborated by P. W. 21 Chainsukh and P. W. 15 Bansi. It is, therefore, proved that the appellant was arrested at Jodhpnr railway station. Shri Brijgopal further deposed that on the same day under police custody the appellant gave information regarding letter Ex. P. 21 and the information contained in document Ex. P. 15 The Dy. S. P. further deposed that in consequence of this information he took the appellant to his house and from there in consequence of the information recovered Ex. P. 15 and P. 21. Regarding the recovery the statement of the Dy. S P. is further corroborated by motbir witness P. W. 14 Babulal. P. W. 21 Chainsukh, S. I. also corroborates the story. I have gone through these statements carefully and could find no reason to disbelieve them and in my opinion the learned Additional Sessions Judge rightly believed them.

4. Specimen writings Ex. P. 16 to P. 19 were obtained on 17.6.1971 by the Municipal Magistrate, Jaipur City. It was sent to the hand writing expert K. S. Puri who after comparing the handwriting was of the opinion that Ex. P. 16 was in the handwriting of appellant Usman. I have gone through the statement of Shri K. S. Puri who has given good reasons for arriving at this conclusion. Even the appellant did not specifically deny that Ex. P. 15 was not in his handwriting.

5. I have gone through Ex. P. 15 which contained information directly or indirectly useful to an enemy. It contained the information about the Rajasthan Canal, posting of No. 12 battalion at Ranjeetpura, it also contained some information regarding Jaisalmer aerodrome. In my opinion therefore, the learned Additional Sessions Judge rightly came to the conclusion that this information could be useful to an enemy and the purposes of the appellant in collecting this information was prejudicial to the safety or interest of the state. The basis of this finding was Ex. P. 21 in which he was asked to collect this information. I, therefore, find that the learned Additional Sessions Judge rightly convicted the appellant of the aforesaid offence and see no reason to take a different view.

6. I, therefore, dismiss the appeal filed by the appellant Usman.Appeal dismissed.

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