Navy War Room spy scandal

Lt. Commander Ravi Shankaran (RETD) (born 1964) is a decorated ex Indian Naval clearance diving officer who is allegedly now an arms dealer and is the prime accused in a case of military espionage for commercial purposes which has international implications. Shankaran was a London-based NRI business man and is the only one to have escaped the dragnet of the Income Tax, CBI and Interpol for his role in masterminding now what is known as the Navy War Room Leak Case.

He is the prime accused in the "Naval war room spy scandal", which is linked to the Scorpene deal scam. In this case, a number of documents stolen from the Navy war room were leaked to Thales, the maker of Scorpene submarines enabling them to clinch a Euro 3 Billion Submarine Deal with the Indian Navy. Shankaran is a retired naval officer of the 67th NDA Course whose parents lived in Pune and took early retirement from the Indian Navy for Medical Reasons. While in the Navy he moonlighted in commercial diving, and was a regular on the Mumbai party scene, being particularly popular amongst affluent women. Like many other retired naval officers he then opened a naval-supply and Salvage business, starting a company called Shanks Oceaneering. The business was soon doing well and Shankaran became well known for his party lifestyle; becoming known by his preferred nickname, Shanx.

In Oct 2005, DNA magazine reported that some documents were allegedly leaked on a USB pen drive from the Directorate of Naval operations in New Delhi (also called the Navy War Room). However, they were intercepted by air force intelligence from the house of Wing Commander S L Surve. The documents, which dealt with Indian defence purchases, were related to India's future defence preparedness plan and were passed on to billionaire arms dealer Abhishek Verma, Ravi Shankaran and Kulbhushan Prashar, an associate of Ravi Shankaran, who was also an ex naval officer.

After the leak was exposed, the Navy conducted its in-house investigation, and in December 2005, it sacked three officers, Vijendra Rana of the Marine Commando Force, Vinod Kumar Jha, a navigation and operations specialist and Captain Kashyap Kumar, another navigations and operations specialist, without any trial, who were then arrested and incarcerated behind bars for varying periods. All three are now out on bail. Officially, the reason given for their dismissal under the rarely used "President's 'Pleasure" clause, was because they had leaked classified information after accepting '`gratification, and this may affect the "security of the State", but the lack of criminal charges against the three has been very surprising. In fact, the navy did not pass on the case to the nodal investigative agency, the Central Bureau of Investigations until nearly a year had passed after the initial break., while others hinted that the investigation may have been deliberately delayed, possibly to protect Shankaran.

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Wikipedia