Delhi HC quashes trial court order against RIL under Official Secrets Act

HC says trial court erred in ignoring newspaper reports, which had already published content of said documents

The Delhi High Court (HC) on Thursday quashed a lower court’s order charging some executives working at Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) and the company under various sections of the Official Secrets Act. A single-judge Bench of Justice Sunil Gaur said since the said documents, against which the charges were framed, were already in public domain, the lower court’s decision to charge the officials with various sections of the Official Secrets Act was not right.

In 1998, the Delhi Police had conducted raids on various executives of RIL and seized photocopies of four documents of the Government of India, running into 37