In the current week, the CBI had arrested a serving naval officer and two retired ones, along with two “private persons”, for leaking confidential information related to the modernization of the Kilo-class conventional submarines.
This episode which is considered a major security setback for the Indian Naval Forces surely reminds us of the Naval War Room Leak that took place back in 2005.
The Naval War Room leak case
Considered as one of the biggest defence scandals of the nation, over 7,000 pages of sensitive information was leaked back in May 2005. This information included the Navy’s plans for the next 20 years while the act was referred to as the notorious Naval War Room leak.
When an Air Defence Directorate officer was put under surveillance by the Indian Air Force Intelligence, the case came to light. A pen drive was recovered by the IAF containing the sensitive information about India’s naval and maritime plans for the next 20 years while the leak was later traced to the Maritime Operations Centre of the Directorate of Naval Operations in Delhi, as per the report released by the Economic Times.
In July 2006, the CBI charge sheet stated that information for big multinationals which were engaged in defence supplies was also contained in the documents and the worth of this information ran into billions of dollars when translated into currency.
The Scorpene leak case
After reports in Australia revealed the leaking of the entire design plan of India’s Scorpene submarine fleet, alarm bells rang again in the South Block in 2016.
On the other hand, it was said by the Indian Navy in a statement that probably the leak seems to have been from overseas and not in India.
The Navy said that no security compromise has been posed as such by the documents which are posted on the website by an Australian news agency as the vital parameters have been blacked out.
A few of the 22,400 pages were put out by an Australian newspaper which they had. Vital information was blacked out by the paper citing the security concerns of India.
The 2020 leak case
For leaking sensitive information to Pakistan intelligence services on social media, 13 Indian Navy personnel were arrested in February 2020.
The names of the top-level officers, ships and submarines, details of other colleagues recruited recently from various naval bases and routes operated by the arrested navy personnel were revealed by them. Some vital locations were also disclosed along with movements of warships and submarines.