Ravi Shankaran

Lt. Commander Ravi Shankaran (RETD) (born 1964) is an ex Indian Naval decorated Deep Sea Diver 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 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 Kickback Case. 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 whose parents lived in Pune and took early retirement from the Indian Navy for Medical Reasons. Like many other retired naval officers he then opened a naval-supply and Salvage business, starting a company called Shank Oceaneering. The business was soon doing well and Shankaran became well known for his party lifestyle; becoming known by his preferred nickname, Shanx.

Naval War Room Leak

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 Abhishek Verma, Ravi Shankaran and Kulbhushan Prashar.

After the leak was exposed, the Navy conducted its in-house investigation, and in December 2005, it sacked three commanders in the navy, Vijendra Rana, Vinod Kumar Jha and Captain Kashyap Kumar, without any trial. 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.

When questioned why the involved civilians had not been charged criminally, defence minister Pranab Mukherjee, told CNN-IBN's Karan Thapar in 2006: "Why does action have to be taken against them (civilians)? This is commercial information. People want to have commercial information. They deployed their services."

After a string of articles in the Outlook magazine about Navy War Room Leak Case being related to the Scorpene Kick Back Case where a commission of USD 165 million was paid to Shankaran, Verma and their Accomplices, investigations were handed over to the CBI. After raids were conducted in 20 offices and residences nationwide of Shankaran his business partner, retired Commander Kulbhushan Parashar was arrested in April 2006 at the Indira Gandhi Airport in New Delhi on his arrival from London where he had met Shankaran. The large number of documents uncovered by the CBI resulted in many more arrests such as arms dealer and self-proclaimed "billionaire" Abhishek Verma and Wing Commander S.L. Surve. Also arrested was Rajrani Jaiswal from Pune, who was apparently used by Kulbushan Parashar as a "honey trap". Surve, who was posted as joint director (air defence) in the Air HQ, was so besotted with Rajrani that Surve's wife complained to the IAF about them. Eventually Surve was fired.

Unable to secure Ravi Shankaran's presence for further investigations the CBI cancelled his passport and successfully got Interpol to issue a worldwide Red Corner Notice for his immediate arrest in 2006.

The CBI was also successful in seizing and attaching all properties and assets owned by Ravi Shankaran including his bank accounts and cars in India as well as overseas. Based on Kulbhushan Parashar's confession that he had met Shankaran in London, the CBI through the Scotland Yard were successful in obtaining a UK arrest warrant from a Judge at the Westminster Court. The CBI claimed that “the warrant as a major step towards his apprehension and extradition. Shankaran's arrest could open up further leads in the case”.

In spite of an International Interpol and UK arrest warrant Ravi Shankaran allegedly managed to give the authorities a slip and moved to Europe without valid travel documents. He was successfully tracked by CBI using Technical Surveillance Intelligence to France, Spain, and Norway and after trailing him for over four months, the CBI found him in Sweden where he was nearly detained but managed to evade the authorities. CBI officials said that they were confident of getting Shankaran extradited to India and termed his "vanishing act" as a temporary phase till the law caught up with him.

In Dec 2007, Arun Prakash responded to a biased article in the Outlook Magazine which tried to imply that the CBI had found evidence of him helping Ravi Shankaran escape Justice by a public statement quoting a CBI document:

The investigation so far, leading to the filing of two charge sheets has not revealed any incriminating act on the part of Admiral Arun Prakash with regard to this conspiracy.

CBI has so far filed 2 charge sheets in this case. No charge sheet has been filed against Capt. Kashyap Kumar, Rajrani and Mukesh Bajaj (mentor of Rajrani;now dead) as nothing incriminating related to this case was found. VK Jha has not been charged with espionage but for negligence as IT head leading to leakage.

It appears that Shankaran and Parashar, both of whom had taken early retirement from the navy, had convinced their friends commander Vijendra Rana to enable the copying of classified information from the Navy War room in the South Block. Eight pen drives were used to carry the information to their contacts in international armament companies interested in selling to India. Only two of the eight pen drives could be recovered.

Arrest in London

In April 2010, four years after the Interpol Red corner notice had been issued against him, Ravi Shankaran gave himself up voluntarily in London. Reports indicate that he was being extradited via proceedings in the court of District Magistrate, Westminister's Court, London. However, in over nearly 3 year, he is yet to be extradited as of January, 2013. On 30th December 2011 the London Court has held that there is prima facie answerable case against Shankaran but it also allowed him to refute the same at the next hearing. Now Shankaran has claimed in the court that since his assets are frozen he may be granted Legal Aid which was accepted by the Court. Meanwhile, he is on bail in London with restrictions. On 27th March 2013, Shankaran lost his appeal against extradition .