Days after the CBI invoked the Official Secrets Act to raid his house and seize his computers, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), the country’s premier foreign intelligence agency, has decided to hold an “internal inquiry” into the allegations of corruption cited in Major General (retired) V K Singh’s book on the agency, India’s External Intelligence. The allegations relate to procurement and purchase of sensitive equipment.

At the same time, in a move to prevent such publications in future, RAW has directed all its officials to sign an undertaking that they will not write about the agency without its permission. This undertaking applies even to officials who complete the two-year cooling off period after they retire.

Those who wish to write will have to furnish their manuscript to the agency for clearance, official sources said, failing which they will face action.

Justifying the crackdown on the author, RAW officials claim that Singh’s book referred to some projects that were either ongoing or delayed due to technical or operational reasons. “Anybody in the business of intelligence will be able to figure out what these projects mentioned in the book refer to,” a senior official said.

An Army officer, Singh was on deputation with RAW during the Kargil conflict.

In the book, he criticised New Delhi’s decision to go public with intercepts of communication among the Pakistan top brass to prove their involvement and called for RAW’s accountability to Parliament.

After he was booked by the CBI, Singh, who has got anticipatory bail, addressed a press conference reiterating what he had written in the book and criticised the government for its action against him. “There is nothing in the book that threatens national security,” he said.