A writ petition was filed in the Delhi High Court asking the government and Chief of Army Staff to declassify official documents pertaining to the Samba Spy Scandal and put them in the public domain. The petition was filed by Ashok Kumar Rana (former Captain, 7 Jat Regiment) and Ranbir Singh Rathaur (former Captain, 11 Garhwal Rifles).
The Samba Spy Scandal took place in the second half of the 1970s. It led to the arrest of over 160 Army officers and personnel under suspicions of working for Pakistani intelligence. Petitioner No. 1, Ashok Kumar Rana, said he had been arrested on October 27, 1978, and “was forced to make false statements/confession of having crossed the border” with Ranbir Singh Rathaur. The petition said “under months of brutal tortures and threats to life and family”, he was “forced to implicate about 52 Army officers and civilians in espionage activities”. The petition detailed the timeline of incidents including the multiple court cases that followed.
The petition said the petitioners had “tried every legal recourse available to them in order to prove their innocence but all to no avail as the entire basis/materials of the charges and subsequent court martial proceedings against them were never properly and fully disclosed”. It said their “careers, dignity and honour” had been sacrificed for “selfish gains and motives of certain officers”.
Since the scandal took place 40 years ago, it asked for the declassification of official documents since “all court cases have ended and no claim of national security can now be raised”. It added: “In all the major democracies around the world including United State of America and several European countries, all the classified documents have a fixed duration of classification and are mandatorily required to be declassified after a passage of a specified time or a specified event.”
The petition said the petitioners had never been shown these documents “as that would have exposed the falsity and malafide behind the whole series of Samba cases”. It noted that this denial to show them the documents violated rights guaranteed under the Constitution.