Why CBI is not probing the Madhuri Gupta spy case

Once bitten, twice shy. That may explain why a national embarrassment like the Madhuri Gupta spy scandal has found its way to a state police and not the country’s premier federal agency, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

Normally, cases of such sensitive nature, involving multi-nation dimensions and the Official Secrets Act are handled by the CBI. But in this case, the Intelligence Bureau (IB), which had cracked the Madhuri Gupta spy scandal, insisted that it be handled by the Delhi Police.

Sources within the intelligence fraternity told DNA that the reasons for keeping CBI out from this scandal run deep and go back to the ISRO spy scandal that rocked the country in the 1990s.

The CBI’s investigation of the spy scandal involving top ISRO scientists had severely indicted the then IB chief DC Pathak and nine other senior officers for mishandling investigation. The CBI had, in fact, held the IB responsible for creating an imaginary spy-ring and falsely implicating two Indian space scientists.

The probe had thus exposed how the IB can indulge in wrong-doings of this magnitude, and the CBI refused to buckle under the pressure of the IB. Relations between the two agencies have not been normal since then.

Learning from this experience, the IB has kept the CBI at arm’s length this time. It was the IB which was tracking Madhuri Gupta five months ago in Jammu and Kashmir when she was traveling around in a private car with a Pakistani number plate. The IB was tipped off about Gupta’s movements by a local operative and it later turned out to be a big catch for the agency.

Gupta, an employee of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), was then reporting to the Research & Analysis Wing (R&AW) station head RK Sharma. Both Gupta and Sharma had been posted to the Indian High Commission in Islamabad.

The IB, however, never informed R&AW that it was tracking Gupta. She was called back by the MEA on some pretext and the IB immediately detained her. The formal arrest was done later.
Gupta was booked under the Official Secrets Act by the Delhi Police’s anti-terrorist unit, Special Cell, which is known to work closely with the IB. In fact, many of the terrorism cases booked or worked out by the Special Cell are known to have the active support of the IB.

In Gupta’s case, the IB has been strangely overzealous in trying to ensure that “nothing goes wrong”. And R&AW is upset that the IB had been tracking Gupta for over six months without keeping them informed.

While the IB is taking pride in the fact that they have caught the “big fish”, R&AW claims that Gupta was a junior level functionary and did not have access to any classified information.

Meanwhile, Gupta was produced before a Delhi court today, which turned down the Delhi Police’s plea for further custodial interrogation and sent her to 14 days judicial custody.