Senior officer leaked army chief's letter to PM

A joint secretary-rank officer in the Cabinet Secretariat has been found guilty of leaking Army Chief General V K Singh's letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh about the poor state of preparedness of his force and has been shunted out.

A probe into the leakage by the Prime Minister's Office has also cleared General Singh of any wrongdoing in the episode, highly-placed sources said.

In his letter, the army chief had highlighted the critical shortage of equipment and ammunition in artillery and armoured regiments.

The female officer, belonging to the Indian Economic Service, was handling the charge of intelligence agencies under the Cabinet Secretariat and was nailed after interrogation of some suspected people.

The officer has now been repatriated to her parent cadre and further action can be taken against her for leaking such a sensitive document, sources said.

After the letter surfaced, both the Houses of Parliament were rocked over the issue and certain parties had demanded action against General Singh.

At that time, General Singh had said that incident should be treated as "high treason" and the source of leakage should be dealt with "ruthlessly."

"The leakage of the letter should be treated as high treason. Cynical approach to tarnish my reputation should stop. Sources of the leakage should be found and dealt with ruthlessly," General Singh had said in a statement issued by the army headquarters.

Following the incident, the government had asked the Intelligence Bureau to investigate the matter and find out the person responsible for it.

The letter was leaked to the media after General Singh made a sensational disclosure in an interview that he was offered a bribe of Rs 14 crore by a retired lieutenant general for favouring a sub-standard defence deal regarding the purchase of army trucks.