New Delhi: A Delhi court today extended till July 4 the judicial custody of five accused, arrested in connection with the Petroleum Ministry documents leak case. Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (CMM) Sanjay Khanagwal extended the custody of the accused who were produced before the court on expiry of their 14-day judicial remand.
“IO (investigating officer) is directed to supply the deficient documents to all the accused in compliance of section 207 of CrPC. Judicial remand of five accused extended till July 4. Put up for further hearing on July 4,” the CMM said.
The five accused whose custody was extended are Asharam, Ishwar Singh (multi-tasking staff of Petroleum Ministry), Asharam’s sons Lalta Prasad, Rakesh Kumar (both former staff of the Ministry) and Rajkumar Chaubey (a driver). Eight other accused including five corporate executives — Shailesh Saxena of Reliance Industries Ltd, Vinay Kumar of Essar, Rishi Anand of Reliance ADAG, Cairns India’s K K Nayak and Jubiliant Energy’s Subhash Chandra have already been enlarged on bail.
During the hearing, counsels for corporate executives moved separate applications seeking deficient documents from the IO. They argued that documents filed before the court in sealed cover have been not been provided to the accused and neither have the documents relied upon by the police in the charge sheet been given to them.
The CMM directed the IO to provide all the deficient documents to the accused in compliance with section 207 of CrPC. Crime Branch of Delhi Police has charge sheeted 13 accused in the case. Earlier, the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas had informed the court that eight documents recovered from the accused in the case were classified in nature and none of these were in public domain.
The Crime Branch has chargesheeted the 13 accused in the case for alleged offences under various sections of IPC including 457 (trespass), 380 (theft), 420 (cheating), 468 (forgery for the purpose of cheating), 471 (using as genuine forged documents) read with 120-B (criminal conspiracy).
On February 20, police had arrested the five corporate executives alleging that they used to procure classified documents from accused Lalta Prasad and Rakesh Kumar and used to pay them. The documents were then supplied to the firms by these officials for their benefit, the police had alleged.
Besides them, the police had also arrested Prayas Jain, Saikia, Ishwar Singh, Asharam and Rajkumar Chaubey for conspiring to procure sensitive documents from different ministries including Petroleum and Natural Gas.
A total of 16 people have been arrested in connection with two separate FIRs lodged by the police.
