Army's ex-Lt Gen moves Delhi HC against framing of charges

A retired lieutenant general today moved the Delhi High Court seeking quashing of charges framed against him by a trial court in a 27-year-old case for allegedly supplying classified information about the country's weapons and equipment systems to an international arms dealing firm.
A bench of Justice Ashutosh Kumar issued notice to CBI on the plea of Lieutenant General (retd) Nirmal Puri and posted the matter for further hearing on January 29.
The counsel appearing for Puri said the petitioner had filed an RTI application to the Army based on the two hand-written notes purportedly written by him and recovered from a business house during a search operation.

The counsel said, in its reply to the RTI query, the Army told the petitioner that the notes were just jottings by a retired officer and that the information contained in them was not classified and already in the public domain.
The judge said if the notes contain sensitive information regarding security and safety of the State which could benefit an enemy country, it will take the matter seriously.
The trial court had on October 17, framed charges against Puri and M/s Concord International Pvt Ltd's official Vinod Khanna, whom the top army officer had allegedly supplied sensitive information in 1984-87.

The court had framed charges under section 120B (crimnal conspiracy) of IPC and various provisions of Official Secrets Act against both the accused.

Puri is alleged to have prepared two hand-written notes containing classified information regarding equipment like light tanks, radio sets, training simulators and others.
The notes were recovered during a search conducted on the premises of M/s Concord International Pvt Ltd from its Golf Links office here on February 2, 1987.
Khanna was charged with obtaining "information which might be directly or indirectly, useful to an enemy".
Puri had joined the Indian Army on December 11, 1949 and retired on March 17, 1985.

The FIR was registered in January 1988 against Puri and Khanna following a complaint by D M L Malhotra, Under Secretary of the Ministry of Defence, and the charge sheet was filed in 1989.