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Delhi HC asked to examine Samba spy case afresh
Legal Correspondent

New Delhi, March 22
The Supreme Court today directed the Delhi High Court to examine the three-decade-old infamous Samba spy case afresh to find out if the General Court Martial (GCM) proceedings against a large number of army officers and some JCOs were based on correct facts or not.

The direction was issued by a Bench of Mr Justice Arijit Pasayat and Mr Justice Tarun Chatterjee on an appeal of the Ministry of Defence (MoD), challenging the December 21, 2000 judgement of the High Court giving a clean chit to nine officers accused of espionage for Pakistan in Samba Sector of Jammu and Kashmir over a period between 1972-78.

All officers, removed from the Army in view of the GCM inquiry were exonerated by the High Court, holding that no material about their involvement in the spying for Pakistan, was brought on record.

The High Court had directed the MoD to grant all consequential monetary benefits to the officers within four months of its December 21, 2000 order.

The apex court gave four months’ time to the High Court to decide the matter afresh by taking into account the material documents, the MoD claimed to have placed on record, saying that there had already been an inordinate delay in deciding the matter.

The MoD had appealed against the judgement in the apex court, claiming that there were sufficient proofs about the involvement of these officers in espionage activities and the High Court had failed to appreciate them.

The officers exonerated by the High Court are: R. K Midha, N.R Ajwani, S.P Sharma (all holding ranks of Major at that time), Arun Sharma, Kulwant Singh, Vijay Kumar Dewan, J.S Yadav, Ranbir Singh Rathaur and Ashok Kumar Rana (all Captains).

The main ground raised by the MoD was that the High Court’s verdict had come in the course of it deciding the question of maintainability of the writ petitions of these officers, whose cases had attained finality after the Supreme Court had rejected their special leave petition (SLP) in 1981.

The High Court had admitted their criminal writ petition afresh in 1995 and decided the matter on the basis of it when its maintainability was challenged by the government, the MoD had said.