Navy Vice-Admiral denied key post

New Delhi: The shadow of the War Room Scandal continues to loom large over the Navy and now threatens to affect the succession to the post of Navy Chief.

Vice-Admiral Pradeep Kaushiva, who was in charge of the War Room when classified information was leaked from there in 2005 has been denied appointment to a key post.

Navy Chief Admiral Arun Prakash, who recommended Kaushiva for the post, admitted that senior officers could not escape blame even if they were not found directly involved.

"Kaushiva happen to be in the organisation when something went wrong and it's the tradition of the service that responsibility normally stops at the highest level," says Prakash.

The scandal has severely embarrassed Admiral Prakash because the alleged recipient of the stolen information was his nephew, R Shankaran.

Shankaran is a former Navy officer who now plays in the shadowy arms bazaar.

"The buck stops right here. Anything that happens in the Navy is the responsibility of the Chief of Naval Staff," Prakash adds.

While Prakash's job does not seem to be in danger, finger pointing is not stopping at Kaushiva.

There's a view that the principle of responsibility must extend to Kaushiva's former boss, Vice-Admiral Sureesh Mehta.

As the then Deputy Chief of Navy, Mehta headed its Operations Directorate, which runs the War Room. The problem is that Mehta is in line to succeed Admiral Arun Prakash as Navy Chief later this year.

"It is far too early to talk about succession. There's still about a year to go. So, I don't know what you're implying," says Prakash.

The Navy brass' embarrassment has been compounded by one of the accused officers challenging his dismissal in court.

The last word in the Navy War Room leak is yet to be spoken. What remains to be seen is how much higher the stain will spread.

In September 2005, sensitive data was stolen from the war room of the Naval headquarters.

The finger of suspicion pointed to some high level naval officers posted at the key operations directorate.

The officers allegedly leaked out classified information for commercial interests.