VEEKAYS NEWSLETTER – 2012
Christmas
and the New Year are round the corner and it is time for the annual ritual of getting
‘through’ with near and dear ones, some close and some far away. There are many
friends, acquaintances, comrades and colleagues who one has not met or spoken
to for years. In fact, at the ’dam busters’ get together held a year ago in
Kharakvasla, some of us met after exactly 47 years! The fact that a few had
already departed on their last journey made the occasion doubly poignant,
reminding us that we are getting older, if not old.
2012
has been eventful, if not exactly hectic.
The case filed against me by the CBI at the behest of RAW is still on.
They filed a charge sheet in April 2009, after which I applied to the court for copies of documents
listed in the charge sheet as evidence to be given to me (I already have copies
of some of them, which pertain to appointment, salary, extension and
re-employment etc). The court granted the request, but the CBI went in appeal
against that order in the High Court. At that time, the Supreme Court had
stayed a similar order of the Delhi High Court on an appeal by the Government
in the case of Brig Ujjal Dasgupta, and the CBI counsel was banking on that. (Ujjal
was granted bail after spending more than four years in jail on a trumped up
charge). However, shortly afterwards the Supreme Court dismissed the appeal,
and ordered that the documents will be given. With this, it was thought that
the CBI will now have no option but to do the same in my case. But I had not
taken into account the ingenuity of the CBI counsel. For the last two years or so, he has delayed
the case seeking adjournments on one pretext or the other. Fed up with this, I
met the Director CBI Mr AP Singh in April and told him that his lawyer was
taking him for a ride – the CBI was paying him for each hearing and he was
deliberately making sure that the case drags on for another five or ten years.
The Director promised to look into it.
I
had also filed a case in the High Court in 2008 for quashing the FIR and charge
sheet. This is still to be decided. The CBI counsel is the same, in this case
as well as in the lower courts.(Just for the record, he played a role in the
famous case of Captain BK Subbarao, IN, who was arrested at the Bombay airport in
1988 for attempting to take ‘secret’
documents, abroad – only it was his own PhD thesis. He spent 20 months in jail
and was exonerated by the Supreme Court only in 1993. The CBI counsel in my
case was one of the two counsels who filed a false affidavit in the Supreme
Court on behalf of the Government in the Subbarao case). Arguments have been
held and the case is listed for final disposal since April 2011. For various
reasons it has still not been decided.
Then
there are five cases which I have filed in the court of the Chief Metropolitan
Magistrate under CrPC 156 (3), asking that the CBI be directed to register FIRs
and investigate the complaints I have made to them. One relates to the
instances of corruption that I have reported to the CVC and the CBI. The other
four concern disclosures in books and articles about RAW, some of which I have
used as reference material. Hearings are still being held, without a decision
so far. After almost three years, the CMM transferred the case involving corruption
to the District Judge, who in turn sent it to the CBI Spl Judge. After about a
dozen hearings, the CBI Spl Judge discovered that only the High Court or the Supreme
Court has the authority to direct the CBI to register an FIR and investigate a
case. I am wondering how this happened – for three years, neither the CMM, nor
the District Judge nor the CBI Spl Judge was aware of the Supreme Court ruling
that lays down this condition. Now I plan to file a petition on similar lines
in the High Court. Perhaps in 2-3 years, they might take a decision.
As regards
the other four cases against the authors of books and article, some of which I
have quoted in my own book, summons were issued in two cases. They promptly
went to the High Court, Quoting Section 13(3) of the Official Secrets Act,
which stipulates that5 no court will take cognisance of an offence under this
Act unless the complaint comes from a government department. Now we know why in
all espionage case, such as the war room leak case, the bureaucrat will never
be punished. The person to whom secret documents or information was passes can
be prosecuted, but not the official was passed it on, after accepting a bribe. I
did some research in the National Archives in the genesis of the OSA, in UK as
well as in India. I found some interesting facts.
In the Indian Official Act of 1889 as well
1904, there was a provision for sanction being required from the Governor
General or the Local Government. This provision was also inserted in the Indian
Official Secrets Act, 1923. In 1937 and
1967, ‘Governor General’ and ‘Local Government’ were amended to read
‘Appropriate Government’. The intention of nominating the Governor General as
the sanctioning authority was to ensure that prosecution under the OSA was
undertaken only in very serious cases, after clearance at the highest level.
However, as it stands today, this provision is being misused by unscrupulous
elements within the government and outside. Classified information is being
leaked to the media by intelligence agencies, to protect themselves from blame
for intelligence failures after terror attacks. Classified information is also made
available by corrupt officials to private vendors, to enable them to bag
lucrative government contracts, especially in the defence and aerospace
sectors. Because of the stipulation given in Section 13 (3) of the OSA, no
action can be taken by the courts even when such cases are brought to their
notice by whistle blowers. The organisations to which these officers belong
rarely agree to make formal complaints, since many of them are involved in such
activities themselves. Brilliant
is it not?
Recently,
a PIL was filed in the Supreme Court on behalf of the Centre for Public
Interest Litigation, questioning the legal status of the three Indian
intelligence agencies – IB, RAW and NTRO. It seeks that the Government be
advised to enact laws to define their role along with provisions for parliamentary
oversight and audit, as has been done in all democracies, including USA, UK,
Canada, Australia, New Zealand etc. As it stands, for all practical proposes
these agencies are a law unto themselves, since their very existence is not formally
recognised. One only has to read the books by MK Dhar, B. Raman, Sankaran Nair etc
to realise that they are used by the party in power for everything under the
sun, including illegal tapping of telephones (even the President of India,
GIani Zail Singh was not spared), breaking into people’s houses (Maneka Gandhi),
bribing politicians from other parties to change their loyalty and so on. B Raman
and Sankaran Nair even give details of a bribe of 6 million dollars paid by the
Government of India in to an Iranian called Rashidiyan, who was a friend of
Ashraf Pehlavi, the sister of the Shah of Iran. The reason – to get a soft loan
of 250 million dollars from Iran after the US imposed sanctions on India in the
wake of the 1974 Pokharan blast. Of course, the level of corruption in the
intelligence agencies is mind boggling. Some instances have been mentioned in
the PIL. Let us see what happens.
There
are many other interesting cases but if I do not stop, this newsletter will
begin to look like a law journal. Obviously, a lot of my time and energy is
spent in drafting petitions and attending hearings. For the record, in 2012 I
have attended 2 hearings in the Supreme Court, 11in the High Court, 24 in the
CMM’s court, 12 in court of the CBI Spl judge and 8 in the Chief Information
Commission. These add up to 55, which is a little more than the numbers in previous
years – 50 each in 2011 and 2010, and 42 in 2009. Now, I have to keep a diary
like most lawyers do apart from marking the dates on calendar on by desk.
Another major activity that I
was engaged in from 2006 onwards was the History of the Corps of Signals,
Volume III, covering the period 1947-72. The book was formally released during
the centenary celebrations of the Corps in February 2011 at Jabalpur. But it
has still not been printed because of problems associated with clearance by the
military intelligence directorate. Since September 2010, when I finished the
manuscript, it has been going up and down, between three directorates –
Signals, MI and MO. Initially, MI cleared the book only as a RESTRICTED
publication, on the ground that the 1962, 1965 and 1971 operations had still
not been declassified. We told them that the History Division of the Ministry
of Defence had already written the official histories of the histories of the
1962, 1965 and 1971 wars. Though these had not been printed, they were
available on the website of Bharat Rakshak. But they were still not convinced
and asked us to remove all references to war diaries and official records. We
did this, but they were still not happy, and sent it to MO, for their opinion.
As was to be expected, MO refused to clear it. They asked us to remove the
entire chapter on the 1962 war with China and all references to Mukti Bahini in
1971. This too was done and the book resubmitted, Inexplicably, MO sent it
Eastern Command and 33 Corps, for comments on the Nathu la operations in 1967.
These were written based on personal inputs from signal officers who were
present, especially 2nd Lt (later Col) NC Gupta and Maj (later Lt
Gen) SRR Aiyengar, the ‘sparrows’ of the 112 and 63 brigades. Incidentally I
was also serving in the unit at that time, in Gangtok. Not many pop-le know
that NC Gupta was recommended for an MVC for the op, but was finally given a
Sena Medal, because his citation had details of infantry units vacating their
posts. The manuscript has recently been returned, with the remarks that the version
given does not tally with official records. So now we are back to square
one.
An interesting event
that I was part of is the Jaipur Literature festival. Fed up by the attitude of
the MOD and the Service HQ, I requested the USI to sponsor a discussion on the
issue de-classification of military records. With the approval of the Director
USI, I contacted Namita Gokhale, who is a co-director of the event and arranged
a meeting between a delegation from the USI and the organisers of the event –
Namita Gokhale and Sheuli Sethi. They agreed to give us a slot. For the first time ever, the subject was
discussed during the Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF) in January 2012. In the
session titled 'Indian
Military History: The Missing Links', the discussants were Shri Chandrashekhar Dasgupta, IFS, Squadron
Leader RTS Chhina, Shri Anit Mukherjee and yours truly. The session was
moderated by Manoj Joshi, the current comment editor of Mail Today. Many people, including the organisers, were
skeptical about the interest and response that a mundane subject like military
history would elicit from the audience. One can imagine their surprise when it
was found that the Durbar Hall had been filled up even before the session
started. The audience comprised not only retired defence officers, but many
young people, from school or college.
Another area of concern is
the problems connected with my health. Last year, I had to undergo nine months
of ATT after it was discovered that one my ribs had been partially eaten away
by tuberculosis. The course finished in February this year. Apart from the
nausea caused by the medicines, I had to suffer total abstinence and remained a
teetotaller. Soon after return from our holiday in Europe in September last
year, I had some loss of vision in my right eye. Tests revealed that I had
suffered a haemorrhage in my retina. I was given a Lucentis injection, followed
by a second one after 4 weeks followed by laser scatter after another 4 weeks. After
this, I was given a Macugen injection, followed by three doses of Avastin at
intervals of 6-8 weeks. The last Avastin injection, given in April 2012
resulted in loss of eye sight in that eye. Surprisingly, this happened to eight
persons, mostly veterans, who were given the injections that day. There was uproar,
and I had to undergo an operation called PPV (Pars Plana Vitrectomy) after two days.
I had to go to hospital almost every week for a check up. Things improved only
after I was given steroids. Now, the swelling has almost gone and the vision is
back, but not completely. Vertical lines appear bent or broken and objects in
the middle appear to be smaller than the ones on the periphery of the eye.
I had written to many of you
regarding the incident in April, when I was drugged and robbed in the train,
while travelling from Delhi to Sultanpur in UP. Along with me, another senior
citizen travelling with me on the opposite lower berth was also targeted. I
later came to know that such incidents are quite common, especially in AC 2
compartments. The railways have earmarked four lower births in each coach which
are allotted only to senior citizens. There are gangs comprising two people,
who keep a track of the persons to whom these births are allotted. On the last
day, they book two Tatkal tickets and get the upper births above them allotted,
in collusion with the railway staff. This enables them to spend some time with
the senior citizens, and run small errands, such as getting water, tea etc form
the platform. Once they gain their confidence, they usually drug their water,
tea or food. The drug is carried below the fingernails, and all that one has to
do is to dip the finger in the cup or glass, when the person is looking away or
has gone to the toilet. Of course, I lodged an FIR and the Police did carry out
an investigation. As expected, the IDs submitted by the two boys when making
the reservations turned out to be fake. I had also given the IMEI numbers of
the phones t the police. These were not used, at least for several months after
the event, so the guys were obviously professionals. Details of the incident have
been posted separately on my blog http://veekaysnewsletter.blogspot.com.
This year we had two
sojourns in the hills, both in Himachal. In June we went to Dharamshala and
Dalhousie for a week. Because of my imperfect eye, I decided not to drive and
hired a driver. Shortly after we started climbing the hills ahead of
Chandigarh, We found that he was dozing off. After a few narrow escapes, I had
to take the wheel myself and drive up to Dharamshala. For the next two days I
drove myself until my nephew, who is posted in 10 Guards arranged another
driver from Pathankot. This guy turned out to be excellent, and took us to
Dalhousie and later drove us back to Delhi.
In October, we made a 10-day
trip to Manali. There were 14 of us in three cars – an Innova, a Captiva and a
Skoda. We stayed in the Mountaineering Institute, which has excellent rooms and
lots of parking space. We wanted to do some adventure activities and the Director
of the Institute, Captain Salhuria (he is the brother of Captain Salaria, who was
awarded the PVC) detailed a young lady to advise us. She was Dicky Dolma, who
met us next morning. After she left, my granddaughter told me that her photo
was in their school text books – she had climbed Everest. Naturally, the kids
all wanted a photo and autograph, and Dicky obliged. She told me she was selected
for the Everest expedition by Colonel Amit Roy, our veteran mountaineers from
Signals. The Manali trip was wonderful. The younger ones did a lot of trekking,
para gliding, and river rafting. We went up to Rohtang where there was some
snow. I had driven over this route during the Himalayan Rally in the early eighties,
and the kids were very keen to see the entire stretch beyond Rohtang up to
Keylong. But we had to turn back after about 20 Km as the road was bad. For
some strange reason, taxis from other states are not allowed to go to Rohtang
and private cars need a permit from the SDM. We went on a Sunday but the CO of
the Border Roads task Force, whose office is right next to the Mountaineering
Institute, used his clout and got us the permits.
We are still staying in Gurgaon, in Palam
Vihar. My son Abhimanyu, his wife Jasmine and their two children, Bhuvanyu (10)
and Khushi (8) live on the first floor. They go to Sun City School. My daughter
Mauravi has moved from Ikon Tower opposite the DLF Golf Course to Hextex
Commune a short distance away. Her two daughters, Mriggya (10) and Eshaana (8)
go to the American Excelsior School which is located nearby. Her hubby, Vaibhav,
whom is in the merchant navy, is presently sailing. Mauravi and her children
usually come over to Palam Vihar on Friday evening and go back on Sunday. My
wife’s nephew, Ajay lives just behind us in G-60 with his wife and two
children. So the weekends are far from quiet. During winter, all of us normally
go out for a picnic on Sundays to one of the gardens or monuments in
Delhi. The Outlook Traveller guide to
Delhi and NCR is often consulted before selecting a destination for the
weekend.
This
year too, I have added some names to the list of addressees. Those who wish to
read my previous newsletters can do so by logging on to on my blog http://veekaysnewsletter.blogspot.com.
Wishing all
of you a Merry Christmas and a Very Happy and Prosperous New Year.
Vinay and Kumud Singh
G-31, Palam Vihar, Gurgaon –
122017
Tele: 0124-
4074077, 9873494521, 9899110913
25th December 2010
At Khajjar, near Dalhousie- 30th June 2012