Guilty Until Proven Guilty

The raid on the Ambanis was a follow-up to Balasubramaniam's arrest—made for possession of classified documents—and threatens to embroil them in a messy legal tangle. Naturally, the private sector behemoth is bracing for battle.

Almost anticipating the turn of events, a week prior to the raids, leading lawyer Prashant Bhushan filed a petition in the Supreme Court on behalf of the Centre for Public Interest Litigation and National Campaign for People's Right to Information for scrapping section 5 of the Act.

The portion marked out for scrapping pertains to transfer of information to anyone "entrusted in confidence to him by any person holding office under government, or which he has obtained or to which he has access owing to his position as a person who holds or has held office under government". The petition wants free flow of information in public interest on matters like health and environmental hazards, etc.

The legal fraternity has taken a dim view of the invoking of this Act. The reason for such criticism is obvious. Section 3(2) of the Act provides for conviction by inference. It says that on a prosecution under this section, it shall not be necessary to show that the accused was guilty of any particular act. Notwithstanding the possibility that no such act is proved, he may be convicted if, from the circumstances, it can be proved that his purpose was prejudicial to the state's interests.

Captain B.K. Subba Rao, a nuclear scientist from the Navy who has faced the rough end of the Act, told Outlook: "The Act is ultra vires

(beyond the legal ambit) of the Constitution. The judiciary, barring a few judges, has grossly misunderstood the Act. Often the judges refused to grant bail for charges under the Act, as if the person has committed treason."