In a day or two, the CBI is expected to file its chargesheet against Singh and his publisher V K Garg listing allegations similar to those in the complaint.

The complaint, accessed by The Indian Express, alleges that Singh “acquired knowledge and classified information” during his stint in R&AW, and then “indirectly not only passed on this information to our enemy countries but has alerted the bordering countries to take counter-measures and thus affected India’s diplomatic/ friendly relations with the bordering countries.”

The CBI claims that the plea taken by V K Singh during investigation that his aim was to expose corruption in the external intelligence agency was “not correct.” The concluding section in the complaint notes: “For exposing corruption, there was no need to divulge sensitive secret/top secret matters which have a bearing on the nation’s security...There are well laid down legal avenues available for ensuring action on any specific information about corruption which were not availed by Major General V K Singh.”

The CBI has listed 12 offending paragraphs (see Op-Ed page) of the book India’s External Intelligence — Secrets of Research and Analysis Wing, to build its case under the OSA. It has categorized the “offending” material into four lists:

• Revelation of charter and duties of R&AW from the “classified” report of the Group of Ministers prepared in 2001.

• Revelation of details of R&AW’s “Vision 2000” project to which he was deputed and which were classified as “top secret” since this exposed the technical capabilities of the organization.

• Facts relating to two sub-projects of the R&AW, the VSAT project and the UHF/VHF project.

• Disclosure of locations of R&AW’s secret installations in India as well as names of its undercover agents posted abroad.

The CBI has alleged that Singh has reproduced “almost verbatim” Page 22 of the classified GoM report on internal security. The CBI’s charge: “He has thus exposed the secret organization and made its officers vulnerable by way of providing the information obtained by him, while holding office as Joint Secretary (technical) in R&AW...this can be of benefit to any foreign power interested in it, thereby acting in a manner prejudicial to the safety and interest of the State.”

On the offending contents of the chapters on Vision 2000, the CBI alleges that the “top secret” project covered various sensitive issues like upgradation, modernization and infusion of new technology in R&AW and its own communication network against attack from enemies/adversaries. The complaint lists secret Government orders of 1998-99 via which the project was approved and the file/note sheet numbers of the project with R&AW.

The allegation the retired army officer now faces is, “All these files were classified as “secret” as per the norms of classification of documents as provided in the Department Security Instructions. All these files were dealt with by V K Singh in his official capacity as Joint Secretary and he was not authorized to part with this information to anyone in any manner even after retirement.”

Also that, “by spelling out the details of a top secret project (Vision 2000) and other similar projects, India’s technical capabilities for obtaining information relating to national security have been unduly exposed to unauthorized persons including our enemy countries and adversaries which is bound to seriously effect our national interests. In this way norms of national security have decidedly been compromised.”

The CBI has listed offending paragraphs and sections of the book which mentioned locations of R&AW’s secret installations in India as well as its offices in Bhuj, Patiala, Ladakh, Srinagar, Patparganj (Delhi) and Amritsar. And alleged that, “These are secret locations, the disclosure of which is against the interest of the nation and this violates the provisions of OSA.”

The CBI also charged V K Singh with revealing names of R&AW officials posted abroad, for instance, of Amar Bhushan in Tokyo and N V Menon in Amsterdam and claimed that names of officials “are not divulged in the interest of friendly relations with the foreign countries...book has adversely effected the working of the organization involved in highly sensitive work relating to national security.”

As far as the book’s publisher is concerned, the CBI has stated that he published Singh “knowing full well that certain contents of the book were secret, top secret, classified material.” The complaint was filed in a Delhi court today at a stage when arguments were in progress for holding an in-camera trial in the OSA case.