Rattan Sehgal, controversial ex-IB officer, dies | India News

The Indian Express (December 10th, 1996) had first reported how just a week before, the then IB Chief Arun Bhagat had “confronted” Rattan Sehgal with nine surveillance videos where in which he was seen having “unauthorized” meetings with US diplomats, among whom allegedly including the then CIA station chief, a deputy and a predecessor. Sehgal had apparently not taken what is called “target cultivation sanction” for these meetings and had neither reported on their outcomes to the DIB (Director, Intelligence Bureau). Prior to joining the IB and taking charge of its counter-intelligence wing, Sehgal had handled sensitive assignments like VVIP security and had been posted as a Joint Secretary in the MEA. What followed the sudden resignation of Rattan Sehgal from the IB — and made the espionage angle appear even bigger — was the mutual expulsion of diplomats from both sides shortly thereafter. While India asked for the expulsion of the two diplomats seen in the surveillance videos; by February 1997 it was the US which retaliated and asked for two diplomats posted in the Indian Consular office in San Francisco and Chicago to return to India. The spy spat ended with US officials stating that the diplomatic relations of the two countries should “get on from here…”

Rattan Sehgal, had at the time of his exit from the IB, vehemently denied all allegations, making out that he had been in touch with the US diplomats since they were all professional and social contacts. When The Indian Express had then (in 1996, when the story of his alleged CIA links appeared) contacted him, he claimed he had been contemplating seeking premature retirement from the IB since over a year. Following his exit from the IB in 1996, Sehgal completely disappeared from public view and was hardly ever spotted, even on social media.