Ahmedabad: Gujarat high court refused to quash charges under the Official Secret Act (OSA) against the son of a former minister, for recording and publishing on the internet videos of installations of Reliance Industries Limited on the Jamnagar coast.Rejecting the plea to cancel the FIR against Akhil Parmar, the son of former minister Dinesh Parmar, the HC termed the alleged offence "very dangerous" and commented that it could directly or indirectly help unfriendly powers.In this case, Parmar, his friend Sandeep Rathod and four fishermen were booked under OSA and the Information Technology Act in 2014. This happened after Parmar and Rathod got the fishermen to videograph the Sikka jetty, got CDs made and uploaded the film on the internet. They say it was an attempt to expose the industrial pollution in the area. The police booked them because the area videographed is marked as a prohibited zone. Parmar and Rathod sought the quashing of the complaint on the ground that their intention was to highlight the pollution in the sea, but the state government asserted that leaks of information of vital installations could jeopardize national security.Rejecting the plea, Justice J B Pardiwala said the investigation is yet to take place. "The act of the applicants herein could be termed as very dangerous. The material, if it landed up in the hands of the people who are a potential threat to the security of this nation, the consequences could have been very serious," the court observed. The petitioner also argued that the information regarding Sikka jetty is not secret. But the HC said, "Even information which may not be secret, but which relates to a matter the disclosure of which is likely to affect the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of the state or friendly relations with foreign state or useful to an enemy is an offence under section 3 of the OSA."

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