the leak of information on budget proposals can attract offences under the official secrets act 1923 the punjabharyana high court nand lal more vs the state 1963 and the kerala high court state of kerala vs k balakrishnan 1960 had given verdicts to this effect while considering cases of disseminating and using information from the budget before it is made publicthe case that came up before the punjabharyana high court pertained to leaking information about the proposals in the 195556 union budget by a foreman of the press to some business personnel through middlemen the offences listed against the accused included disclosure of official secret section 54 spying section 34 use of official secret received 52 and retaining official secret 51c the high court upheld the convictionread kerala budget 2017 highlightsin kerala the editor of kaumudi newspaper and correspondent were accused of publishing certain parts of the 195758 budget even before they were presented in the assembly the kerala high court discussed if the budget papers were official secrets and held that they fell under the definition of official secreteven though there is no written rule declaring budget papers before it is presented by the finance minister in the legislature as secret documents it has always been treated as such on a consideration of all these evidence and the views expressed in books on constitutional law about the matter we are clearly of opinion that budget papers are official secrets which cannot be published until the budget is actually presented in the legislature and that contravention of the same would amount to an offence under the act the judgement saidmeanwhile on friday it was former chief minister oommen chandy who brought the papers to the assembly towards the end of the budget presentation the opposition members boycotted the budget presentation and wanted the government to present a fresh budget and remove isaac from the postthe opposition will not accept this budget it is just a bunch of papers which were available in the market while the finance minister was presenting the budget the budget has lost its sanctity opposition leader ramesh chennithala saida surprised isaac said the allegation levelled by the opposition leader was serious and he would make a statement in the assembly after inquiring into it however this did not satisfy the opposition which started reading the budget documents this created a ruckus and the opposition walked out of the housethe opposition leader presented the budget before the media later when isaac was presenting it inside the houseisaac however did not complete his speech though the budget presentation ended on a sore note isaac put up a brave face before the media by refuting the claims he maintained that only the budget brief had leaked and it was not a serious matter