A number of research studies has shown that faults in a stator or rotor generally show sideband frequencies around the mains frequency (50 Hz) and at higher harmonics in the spectrum of the Motor Current Signature Analysis (MCSA). However in the present experimental studies such observations have not been seen, but any fault either in the stator or the rotor may distort the sinusoidal response of the motor RPM and the mains frequency so the MCSA response may contain a number of harmonics of the motor RPM and the mains frequency. Hence the use of a higher order spectrum (HOS), namely the bispectrum of the MCSA has been proposed here because it relates both amplitude and phase of number of the harmonics in a signal. It has been observed that it not only detects early faults but also indicates the severity of the fault to some extent.