HC rejects PIL against 19 RAW officials

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday refused to hear a PIL seeking action against 19 senior officials of Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), India's external intelligence agency, for allegedly leaking confidential information which was subsequently passed on to the United States.

The court refused to pass any order after the petitioner R K Yadav, an ex-employee of Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), failed to produce any evidence to substantiate his allegations against the senior officials.

"Your complete petition is nothing but hearsay. You have no authenticity and without any evidence you are asking us to initiate action against the officers," a two-member Bench headed by Chief Justice A P Shah said.

Yadav pleaded in his petition that 20 RAW employees were involved in leaking the information but CBI filed a complaint only against Ravinder Singh, a senior officer of the RAW, who was declared as proclaimed offender by a court in Delhi.

The Court, however, was not satisfied with his contention and said: "If you have prima-facie evidence against the officers, we will issue notice or else we can ask them (Centre) to look into the matter."

Giving a list of 19 senior RAW officers, Yadav in his petition alleged five senior officers had helped Singh to flee from the country and rest had supplied classified information to him, who in turn had allegedly passed on the confidential documents to the United States.