New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday refused to entertain a plea by Major General (retired) V K Singh challenging the Delhi High Court's order, dismissing his plea for quashing a 2007 CBI FIR and charge sheet filed against him.
The FIR was lodged against Singh for allegedly revealing secret information in his book titled 'India's External Intelligence- Secrets of Research and Analysis Wing (RAW)'.
Senior advocate Mahalakshmi Pavani, representing Singh, submitted before a bench of Justices B R Gavai and Prashant Kumar Mishra that the whole case arose out of 'vendetta'. However, Justice Mishra asked Singh’s counsel, "So you would take revenge against the country?" The counsel emphasized that the FIR is "illegal".
The bench allowed Singh’s counsel to withdraw the plea and allowed him to apply for discharge in the case. The top court noted that the trial court should not be influenced by the observations made by the high court. The bench told the petitioner’s counsel that her client can approach the trial court by filing a discharge application. After hearing submissions, the bench allowed Singh’s counsel to withdraw the plea.
In May this year, a single bench of the Delhi High Court had noted the grievance of the CBI, with regard to the disclosure of the names of the officers, the location of the places and recommendations of the Group of Ministers etc.
Singh, in his plea in the apex court, submitted that he has sought to highlight two major issues, lack of accountability and corruption in RAW, the country's external intelligence agency. Singh claimed the provisions of the Official Secrets Act were unconstitutional for violation of fundamental rights.
The plea said, “The respondent is taking undue advantage of the provisions to incriminate the accused/petitioner herein for the aforesaid offences without a shred of evidence to exact personal vendetta against him for bringing out the huge corruption and other malpractices which is happening within the RAW which goes unchecked as their books of accounts are not audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General…”
The CBI registered a case against Singh on September 20, 2007, under the Official Secrets Act on a complaint filed by B Bhattacharjee, Deputy Secretary, Government of India, Cabinet Secretariat. The high court had said even though the entire tenor of the petitioner’s book cites certain irregularities at RAW, CBI’s objection was regarding the names of the officer, location of the places and recommendations of the GOM.
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