The Post Office Act came into force on June 18. It was passed in the Rajya Sabha on December 4 last year and in the Lok Sabha on December 18.
Repealing the 125-year-old Indian Post Office Act, 1898, the Act contains provisions that allow the Centre to intercept, open or detain any goods and hand it over to customs authorities.
Here's everything you need to know.
Postal officials can “stop” any item
The Act was brought to “consolidate and amend the law relating to the Post Office in India”, which today provides a range of services beyond mere postal delivery, which was the primary concern of the old Indian Post Office Act 1898. The Act states that the post office network has today become a vehicle for the delivery of various citizen-centric services, which necessitated the enactment of a new law.
Notably, Section 9 of the Act empowers the Centre, by notification, to any officer to “stop, open or detain any article” in the interest of the security of the State, friendly relations with foreign States, public order, emergency, public safety or violation of other laws. The provision also allows postal officers to hand over postal articles to customs authorities if they are suspected to contain any prohibited article, or if such articles are liable to duty.
This is similar to sections 19, 25 and 26 of the 1898 Act. Section 19(1) prohibits people from sending by post any explosive, dangerous, dirty, noxious or injurious substance, any sharp instrument not properly guarded, or any living creature which is noxious or likely to cause damage to postal articles, or to postal service officers.
In addition, the power to intercept any prohibited or restricted article transmitted by post, or to intercept any postal article for the public good or in the interest of public safety during an emergency can also be exercised by the government and its officers under sections 25 and 26 of the 1898 Act. In 1968, the Law Commission, while examining the 1898 Act, found that the term emergency was not clearly defined, allowing significant discretion when intercepting goods.
Post Office is exempt from liability
Further, Section 10 exempts the post office and its officers from any liability “due to any loss, wrong delivery, delay or damage caused in the course of any service rendered by the post office,” except such liability as may be prescribed. The 1898 Act also exempted the government from liability for any default in the postal service, except where such liability was expressly assumed.
Further, the Act removes all penalties and offences under the 1898 Act. For instance, offences committed by post office officials such as misfeasance, fraud and theft, etc. have been completely deleted. Also, if a person refuses or neglects to pay the fee for availing a service provided by the post office, such amount can be recovered from them “as arrears of land revenue”.
Centre exclusivity ends
This Act has deleted Section 4 of the Act of 1898, which gave the Centre the exclusive privilege of transmitting all letters by post from one place to another.
Effectively, this distinction had been lost by the 1980s with the rise of private courier services. Since neither the Post Office Act of 1898 nor the Indian Post Office Rules, 1933 defined the term “letter” anywhere, courier services circumvented the 1898 law by calling their couriers “documents” and “parcels” rather than “letters”.
The Act regulates private courier services for the first time by bringing them under its ambit. While the government admits its lack of specificity, it has also extended the scope of the law to intercept and detain any postal article, rather than just letters.
The opposition strongly criticized the bill
When the bill was in Parliament, it was strongly criticised by many opposition members, saying that despite promising to update the colonial law, it had been amended. It contained the most draconian provisions,
“Over the past decade, we have often seen this government, under the guise of decolonising our minds and updating colonial-era learning, introduce laws that are equally or even more arbitrary and irrational, and which often violate the fundamental rights of countless Indians,” Congress MP Shashi Tharoor said, opening the debate on the bill in the Rajya Sabha.
He argued, “Even though this Bill seeks to amend the colonial Bill, it retains its draconian and colonial provisions, while eliminating the burden of accountability that a government enterprise like India Post should constitutionally bear. Sadly, it offers no new ideas to bring our post offices into the 21st century.”
This is an updated version Lecturer Published last December.