The Hindu : 10-year RI for 12 in espionage case

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jul 19, 2002

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10-year RI for 12 in espionage case

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI JULY 18. As many as 12 former staff of the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) and the Rashtrapati Bhavan Secretariat were today sentenced to 10 years' rigorous imprisonment in the sensational Coomar Narain espionage case of 1985.

The Additional Sessions Judge, R.K. Gauba, however, awarded a severer punishment of 14 years' rigorous imprisonment to the main accused, Yogesh T. Maneklal, then Managing Director of the Maneklal Industries Limited of Mumbai because ``he had mobilised the resources of the company for the nefarious activities with the sole object of winning favours from his foreign collaborators''.

Those who were awarded 10 years' rigorous imprisonment are: S. Sankaran, then Senior P.A. in the President's Secretariat; Jagdish Chandra Arora, then P.A. to the then Secretary, Defence Production; Jagdish Mittar Tiwari, then Senior P.A. to then Additional Secretary, Ministry of Defence (MoD); Amrik Lal, then Senior P.A. to erstwhile Joint Secretary (Supply) MoD; V.K. Palaniswamy of the Ministry of Shipping and Transport, H.N. Chaturvedi, then Assistant EP (LSC), Ministry of Commerce; T.N. Kher, then P.S. to the then Principal Secretary to the former Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi, Mr. P.C. Alexander; P. Gopalan, then Senior P.A and K.K. Malhotra, then P.A. to the Principal Secretary to the P.M.; Swaminath Ram, UDC in the office of the Principal Secretary to the P.M.; K.C. Sharma, then P.A. in the Planning Commission and S.L. Chandra.

All the accused had been taken into custody and sent to Tihar Jail on the order of Mr. Gauba on July 16 when the conviction order was pronounced.

The court found them guilty of criminal conspiracy and leaking out important classified information and data to foreign agents.

They had entered into a criminal conspiracy with foreign agents, including Lt. Col. Mexi Morvan and Lt. Col. A. Bain Bioley of the French Embassy and some officials of the Polish Embassy and the Embassy of the then German Democratic Republic (GDR) here and collected, obtained and communicated secret official codes, secret and classified documents and information pertaining to defence, shipping, transport, finance, planning, Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) and Intelligent Bureau (IB) reports, official codes and other classified top secret and confidential information and passed the same to foreign agents, the order said.

The Tilak Marg police had lodged an FIR in the case on January 17, 1985 on the basis of a secret information with the Crime Branch of the Delhi Police that Chitter Venkat Narayan alias Coomar Narain (since dead) was indulging in espionage activities.

The charges in the case had been formally framed on March 3, 1986.

The judge rejected the plea of the accused for a lenient punishment on the ground that they are in the twilight of their lives and that they have already suffered during the long-winded trial.

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