HC notice on Navy War Room leak, Scorpene deal

New Delhi, Aug 7: The Delhi High Court today issued notice to the Union Government on a PIL, seeking direction to the Intelligence Bureau (IB) to produce the evidence in the Navy War Room Leak and Scorpene deal, before the court for scrutiny.

A division bench of acting Chief Justice Vijender Jain and Justice Kailash Gambhir asked the Union Government and the CBI, the investigating agency, to file their replies to the petition by August 28, the next date of hearing.

Various government agencies, including the IB, were involved in investigating the war room leak case and in February 2006, the authorities had decided to hand over the case to the CBI for initiating criminal proceedings against the dismissed Naval officers and civilians, said the petition filed by Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL).

Retired Navy officers Ravi Shakaran, Kulbhushan Parashar and businessman Abhisek Verma were accused of being involved in the war room leak case, said Senior Counsel Prashant Bhushan appearing for the petitioner.

''It is apparent from the documents filed in the war room leak case that the CBI has found all the evidence in the course of investigation except the seizures by the IB,'' said the petition.

The IB had procured several e-mails, telephone records related to the Scorpene deal and these were not the part of the evidence produced by the CBI, said the petition.

UNI