New Delhi, Aug 21: The head of military intelligence has been shunted out.

Lt Gen. Deepak Summanwar is to be replaced by Major General D.S. Bartwal as the director-general of military intelligence (DGMI) on promotion to the rank of lieutenant general.

Bartwal is likely to assume office when he picks up his rank in early September. He is currently additional director-general in the infantry directorate of the army headquarters.

A senior defence ministry source said Summanwar’s next assignment is yet to be decided.

However, it was unlikely that he will be taking up an office in the army headquarters. He is likely to be accommodated in the southern command.

Summanwar ran into a row with defence ministry bureaucrats because of a complaint that he had misused his office.

It is now confirmed that Lt General Summanwar was asked to go on leave after bureaucrats in the defence ministry in an internal report alleged that he had misused his office to help his family make a feature film adapted from a book written by his wife, Sharaayu Phalke.

But the shunting of the DGMI, one of six principal staff officers to the army chief, is also the fallout of an internal squabble within the defence establishment.

There is a turf war between the ministry and the military intelligence directorate on who would have the power to liaise with the media and the public.

Both the defence ministry and the military intelligence directorate have separate branches that deal with the same subject and have often operated without one knowing what the other was doing.

The film crew and Summanwar’s wife had shot in the Indian Military Academy, Dehra Dun, earlier this year.

The project was also blessed by the wife of army chief General Joginder Jaswant Singh.

Anupama Singh is also the head of the Army Wives’ Welfare Association (AWWA) and had said at first that she was giving the film project “moral support” because it would portray how a war widow came to terms with life.

Summanwar’s wife is related to the late filmmaker Dadasaheb Phalke in whose name the government has instituted an award to recognise veteran film artistes.

Included in the cast of the film are Summanwar’s daughter, Arti, and Kunal Mehta, the son of another general.

Army headquarters gives sanctions for film projects after vetting scripts and ensuring that the costs of army assistance are recovered from the producers.

In this instance, though the script of the film was flattering for the army, bureaucrats in the defence ministry were offended because army equipment and establishments were used without written permission.

Army helicopters were said to have flown the film crew.

Summanwar reportedly asked the crew to go ahead with the filming on the understanding that the necessary permissions would be given.

Summanwar is due to retire in March 2007.