Sri Lanka: Accountability in RAW: A crying need

Wednesday, 10 October 2007

The latest crisis within RAW, India's premier intelligence agency, has taken a curious turn with reports stating that infighting in the agency may have led to the recall of its senior operative from Sri Lanka. Ravi Nair, a joint secretary level RAW officer posted in Colombo, was recalled for allegedly maintaining unauthorised contacts with a foreign woman with Chinese connections.

Media reports, attributed to serving intelligence officials, in last few days have highlighted two different versions. One version states that Nair was under the scanner of suspicion for a long time when he was posted in different countries. Nair kept on getting plum postings despite questionable record because he enjoyed patronage of some powerful officials, reports stated.

Another version states that Nair has been framed because of professional rivalry between cadres of the Research and Analysis Service (RAS) and police recruits (IPS) in the organisation.

The entire episode highlights slack internal controls, rising incompetence, and lack of accountability of the agency, which is hindering its intelligence and counter-intelligence operations.

This leads us to a bigger debate of RAW's accountability. There is very less amount of credible information about the agency which is available in public domain. The over secretive organisation does not even have a website, neither is there any official information about its history, strength, objectives, and structure. One can find more information about RAW on Wikipedia than any other source.

Even more worrying is the fact the agency is not answerable to the Parliament. No audit is carried out on the funds allotted to the agency. Hence the Indian public, and even the Parliament, does not have any idea about what India's premier external intelligence agency is doing with the taxpayer's money.

Compared to RAW, the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States and Britain's MI6 are miles ahead in terms of transparency. The CIA website clearly states the number of employees working for the agency. It also mentions the annual budget of the agency.

Lack of transparency

CIA also releases millions of pages of documents of public interest or historical significance every year in the public domain. These documents are declassified under President's Executive Order 12958 or the Freedom of Information Act and Privacy Act.

On the other hand, MI6 maintains a policy of not releasing its records in the public domain. The agency is outside the score of UK's Freedom of Information Act 2000.

But unlike RAW, both CIA and MI6 are subject to parliamentary and US Congress oversight.

Apart from being answerable to the National Security Council - that includes the President, Vice President, the Secretaries of State and Defense - the activities of the CIA are also monitored by the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the US House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

MI6, also known as Security Intelligence Service (SIS), is also subject to parliamentary, ministerial, judicial and financial oversight. This oversight is based on two key pieces of UK legislation, the Intelligence Services Act 1994 (ISA) and the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA).

Financial audit

The Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) examines the expenditure, administration and policy of UK's three intelligence and security agencies. The Committee has nine members, drawn both from the House of Commons and from the House of Lords.

MI6 is also subject to British law. Apart from ISA and RIPA, Human Rights Act 1998 is also of importance to the way the agency functions.

While agencies of the US and the UK are not constrained in terms of funds by their respective parliamentary committees, their accounts are subject to some kind of independent audit. The accounts of MI6 are independently audited by the UK's National Audit Office (NAO). The NAO staff has access to all the information they need for the audit.

Former intelligence officials and analysts opine that RAW has to be more accountable for its operations and transparent in terms of its internal policies. According to these officials, there is no dearth of talent in the agency, but the real problem lies in system of patronage that is being promoted by mediocre senior officials.

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