Second rung RAW officers proceed on protest leave

The six additional secretaries continue to be on leave even after the Cabinet Secretariat conducted a meeting of departmental promotional committee for the officials, who were ranked as additional secretaries in the external spy agency, to ascertain if they could be promoted further, sources in RAW said on Tuesday.

The trouble began when the government cleared A B Mathur, a 1975 batch IPS officer from Manipur cadre, for promotion as Special Director General and posted in RAW as Special Secretary.

Among those who had been superseded were Chakru Sinha, who was of 1973 batch and four officers of 1975 batch of RAW Allied Services (RAS) cadre.

RAS cadre officials traditionally have an upper hand over officials from IPS and IAS joining their service. Any official joining the RAW is usually placed at the bottom of the service with no seniority benefit.

The issue of “outsiders” has been a problem in RAW ever since A S Dulat had joined the agency as its Chief. He was a Special Director in the IB. The government had brought DG of Kerala Police P K Hormese Tharakan as new chief of RAW in 2005 superseding Special Secretary J K Sinha who resigned.

After Tharakan, Ashok Chaturvedi, a 1970-batch IAS officer, was appointed RAW chief. His appointment sidelined Amber Sen who had been made a Special Director in RAW months ahead of him.