Ex-RAW director granted bail in spying case

After remaining in jail for four years, a retired Director of Research and Analysis Wing RAW arrested for passing sensitive information to a CIA agent was today granted bail by a local court which also restrained him from leaving the country.
Additional Session Judge Inder Jeet Singh gave the reprieve to Brigadier (Retd) Ujjawal Dasgupta, who has been in jail since July 19, 2006, on a personal and surety bond of Rs 75,000 each.
Dasgupta, former Director (Computers), RAW, was arrested for allegedly violating the Official Secrets Act by passing on sensitive information to an American diplomat Rosanna Minchew who was allegedly acting as a spy.
Taking into consideration his advanced age of over 64 years and the fact that that other co-accused in the case were out on bail, the court granted relief to the former Brigadier who has been charged with offences punishable upto 14 years jail term. The court, however, warned him against contacting any witnesses of the case.
The other accused in the case Commodore (Retd) Mukesh Saini, who was working with the National Security Council Secretariat and a Senior System Analyst Shib Shankar Paul at the Secretariat, have already been released on bail. All of them were arrested in 2006 by the Delhi Police Special Cell on charges of passing secret information Minchew. Dasgupta was looking after the development of a ‘Anveshak’, a database management system. The court, in its “prima facie” observation, said Central Forensic Sciences Laboratory analysis of seized hard disk showed that that computer files related to Anveshak were last accessed in March 2005.
The American Diplomat was given visa in August, 2005 to coordinate Indo-US Cyber Security Forum. The Delhi High Court had on July two turned down a plea of a retired Director of RAW seeking direction to disclose information under the RTI Act about the software ‘Anveshak’ which was crucial to his defence in the espionage case filed against him.