New Delhi: The external Intelligence
gathering agency--RAW--is in the news again but for wrong
reasons as seven of its Additional Secretaries have gone on
protest leave after they were superseded by an IPS officer
junior to them from the Intelligence Bureau.
The mass protest leave by the senior officials prompted
the Cabinet Secretariat to issue an urgent order to hold a
Departmental Promotional Committee (DPC) process by next week
itself for the seven officials who were ranked as Additional
Secretaries in the external spy agency, sources in the
Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) agency said today.
The trouble began when the Government cleared A B
Mathur, a 1975 batch IPS officer from Manipur cadre, for
promotion as Special Director General and posted in RAW as
Special Secretary. Among those who had been superseded were P
M Hablikar and Chakru Sinha, who were from the 1973 batch of
the RAW Allied Services (RAS) cadre.
The officers approached RAW Chief K C Verma who briefed
the Cabinet Secretariat prompting it to hold a DPC meeting by
next week, the sources said.
RAS cadre officials traditionally have an upper hand
over officials from the IPS and IAS joining their service. Any
official joining the RAW is usually placed at the bottom of
the service with no seniority benefits.
The issue of outsiders has been a problem with the RAW
ever since A S Dulat joined the agency as its Chief. He was
Special Director in the Intelligence Bureau.
The UPA government brought Director General of Kerala
Police P K Hormese Tharakan as new chief of RAW in 2005
superseding Special Secretary J K Sinha, who had resigned.
This was followed by an ugly episode of fleeing of a RAW
Director, Rabinder Singh, during the same time which prompted
the government to examine the rules of the external
intelligence agency.
After Tharakan, it was an insider Ashok Chaturvedi, a
1970 bacth IAS officer, was appointed as next chief of RAW.
His appointment sidelined Amber Sen, who had been made
Special Director in RAW months ahead of him.
Bureau Report
