The Centre has extended tenures of Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) chief Samant Kumar Goel and director of Intelligence Bureau Arvinda Kumar for a period of one year. The appointment committee of cabinet, on Thursday, approved the extension of service, beyond their present tenures ending on June 30, in relaxation of the All India Services Rules, 1958.
Both Kumar and Goel belong to the 1984 batch of Indian Police Service, which recently saw batchmates Y.C. Modi or Rakesh Asthana not making it to the post of CBI director, despite their seniority. With less than six months left in service, they could not be considered for a “fresh” selection and appointment of the chief of the premier investigating agency.
However, Goel and Kumar did not face any such hurdle when the ACC decided to extend their tenures. Goel belongs to the Punjab cadre while Kumar is from Assam-Meghalaya cadre.
Sources said the latest move of the government to extend the tenures of its spymasters was also prompted by Subodh Jaiswal, a 1985 batch IPS officer, being sent to CBI to head the agency. He was being seen as someone who could succeed Goel to head the country’s external intelligence agency once his tenure ended in June since he had a decade-long experience in the spy agency.
Both Goel and Kuma, who have been heading the R&AW and IB respectively since June 2019, enjoy a good working relationship with NSA Ajit Doval and members of the National Security Council Secretariat, which is closely liaising with both the spy agencies in implementing the government’s national security policies.
Goel was instrumental in drawing up the strategies during the Balakot airstrike in 2019 and surgical strike in 2016, and is presently playing a significant role in expanding assets of the spy agency in places of interest. Whether it is cracking down on the Khalistan network abroad which has allegedly been trying to enter the farmer agitation or the disinformation campaign by Pakistan and China, Goel has been trying to use a mix of technology, cyber tools and human resources to expand the R&AW's reach and make it more effective.
Kumar, meanwhile, is seen as a protégé of his predecessor Rajiv Jain, who focussed on economic surveillance, financial terrorism and cyber security. Under Kumar, the IB has been able to unearth the activities of front organisations of the CPI(Maoist) and assisted the actions of law enforcement agencies against Separatists in Jammu and Kashmir and cross border terrorism especially after the removal of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir.