NEW DELHI: In the effort to discredit a former Army Chief—in what essentially was a battle between two Army Chiefs—Colonel Munishwar Nath “Hunny” Bakshi, who led the now disbanded Technical Support Division (TSD), became the collateral damage as he was “tortured” for six long years. The tormenting of Col Hunny Bakshi began after the unit was disbanded in May 2012 when its initiator and then Army Chief General V.K. Singh retired. This continued till March 2018 when his court-martial proceedings were dropped.
The Army carried out a detailed investigation into the alleged wrongdoings of the TSD, but in the end could not find anything and finally dropped the general court-martial (GCM) proceedings against Col Bakshi last year, citing a “technical reason”. However, sources said that the primary reason behind dropping the case was that there was never a case against him and most of the evidence that the Army was using against him was tampered with and falsely created to target him as well as the TSD and ultimately Gen V.K. Singh, who had pushed for the formation of the covert unit.
Bakshi was accused of “mishandling sensitive information” while he was leading the TSD, a lapse for which he was officially warned and the matter disposed of by Gen Singh in 2012 after an investigation was carried out. However, once Singh retired and General Bikram Singh took over, the Army did two things—disbanded the TSD and court-martialled Col Bakshi for something which he was already punished by the former Army Chief.
“There were many glaring holes in the case that was built by the Army against Col Bakshi. The copy of the GCM that was given to the defendants had more than nine crucial pages missing while several pages had hand-written entries that were later added in the documentary evidence to suit a particular narration,” said an Army officer who was involved in the case.
“Moreover, a CD, which was officially destroyed, was submitted as evidence. The content of the CD was ‘edited’ more than three days after it was sealed and on the day when it was supposed to be in ‘transit’, despite the defendant asking for the forensic analysis of the CD, the Army refused to do so,” he added.
“Most importantly, he had already been punished for the said offence by no less than the Army Chief himself. Yet he was again tried for the same allegations. If it would have been a kangaroo court, even then he would not have been held guilty, leave alone a court of the military,” he pointed out.
In fact, even after retiring, Gen Singh appeared as a witness in the GCM against Col Bakshi and stated, “I fail to understand, why the case has been re-opened, once I, as the COAS and the highest competent authority within the Army, had disposed of the matter against the officer in 2012,” Singh told the GCM proceedings.
Even then Deputy Army Chief, General D.S. Thakur, who too was examined during the GCM, said, “I understand that once a case has been disposed of by administering a verbal reproof, which is also a form of punishment by a competent authority, the case cannot be reopened again. So I fail to understand as to what this current proceedings is all about.”
In what aptly describes the witch-hunt that was undertaken against the division, he went on to add, “TSD was an innovative covert effort by the Military Intelligence to penetrate our adversary. It is sad that a number of inquiries were ordered at the behest of the apex level in the Army with effect from the mid of 2012 against these covert intelligence officers and some of the Military Intelligence officers.”
“More than five years have passed but till date none of these inquiries have been concluded. Even the board of officers done by Lt Gen Vinod Bhatia could not come out with anything specific against TSD operations,” Gen Thakur had told the court.