Gen Singh upbraids officer before leaving office

New Delhi, Jun 3: A few days before his retirement, former

chief Gen V K Singh punished an officer in connection with a failed intelligence operation in

, after the Colonel was accused of planting stories about tapping of Defence Ministry phones by the Army.

"I direct that my censure in form of 'Severe Displeasure' be conveyed to Colonel G Srikumar of 3 Corps Intelligence and Surveillance Unit (CISU) presently posted at the Headquarters 4 Rapid Division," Gen Singh wrote in the order issued to the officer.

In the same case, the former Army chief had issued a show cause notice to 3 Corps Commander Lt Gen Dalbir Singh Suhag and Brigadier Abhey Krishna of the same formation for "lapses" on their part and "abdicating responsibility".

In the show cause notice issued to Lt Gen Suhag, Gen Singh had said that "it was also learnt that Commanding
Officer, 3 CISU during his absence from unit on leave was masquerading in Delhi and interacting with the media giving anti-organisation stories".

The Army had alleged that Srikumar was one of the three officers facing action for planting stories against the army while he was on leave from December 18 to January 8.

The Army had recently accused retired Lt Gen Tejinder Singh along with a few serving officers of planting stories in the media about tapping of phones of various senior Defence Ministry officials by its personnel during the age controversy involving Gen Singh.

The snooping issue had come to light on February 16 when an Army Intelligence team, tasked with carrying out debugging of Ministry phones, suspected tapping of phones, but this was denied by the army.

It said there was discrepancy in the telephone lines, which caused an alarm, but no such thing was found during the subsequent checks.

PTI