Security: Media Byte on Recovery of Maps in Baggage

By Col R Hariharan

[This is a paraphrased version of my comments made on the ND TV-Hindu on March 21, 2010.]

Question: Customs officials at the Chennai Port are reported to have recovered detailed maps and plans of vital defence establishments [A total of 54 items such as blueprints of the Naval Dry Dock, Visakhapatnam, Air Force Academy, Hyderabad and a road map of Muzaffarpur and Meerut] in the unaccompanied personal baggage of a retired army officer sent for shipment to the U.S. Can a retired officer be in personal possession of government documents? Can he be prosecuted for violation of Official Secrets Act as these documents are said to relate to sensitive defence establishments like Air Force Academy and Vizag Naval Dock Yard?

Own comment: I am not aware of the complete details of the case except for what is reported in media. There are three issues involved in this.

Firstly, no government servant - serving or retired - can be in possession of official documents [of course, unless they relate to him]. This regulation applies not only to officers of security forces but all government servants. And such possession of documents classified as RESTRICTED, CONFIDENTIAL, SECRET or TOP SECRET will be in violation of Official Secrets Act.

Secondly, according to the media report the officer is said to be 78 years old. Considering that a service officer retires around 54-55 years, the documents in his possession would be pretty old - at least by 23-24 years. Are these documents still classified as secret or have they been downgraded to unclassified since then? This aspect has to be examined before deciding whether the act is a violation of Official Secrets Act. We should remember that this is an era when images of vital installations are available on the Internet. Sometime back, news papers carried the Google satellite image of Kahuta atomic establishment in Pakistan! So we have to view the issue in current perspective.

Third issue relates to enforcement of Official Secrets Act. We are not properly enforcing the Act. [Classified documents are not declassified or destroyed even when they are obsolete.] I remember in the Army Headquarters as late as 1980 there was a reconnaissance report of Iraq written by Lord Wavell as a Major in 1916-18 [when Iraq was called Mesopotamia!]. It was classified TOP SECRET! So before jumping to any conclusions these issues will have to be examined in depth as it involves the character of a retired officer. I am sure the Defence Intelligence authorities will be going into these details before deciding on further action. I should add that personal possession of any official document – classified or otherwise – is a violation of government orders.