Document leak: Court seeks response from home, petroleum ministries
New Delhi, April 10: A court here on Friday sought a response from the petroleum and tural gas and home secretaries specifying whether the documents allegedly recovered in the documents leak case were classified. Additiol Sessions Judge Raj Kapoor’s direction came while hearing the bail pleas of five corporate executives in connection with the case who sought to know from police why it has arrested them without ascertaining whether the documents were classified or not. The court on Monday had directed Delhi Police’s crime branch to seek a report from the petroleum and tural gas ministry specifying whether the documents allegedly recovered in the case were classified. Police failed to file a reply and informed the court that the report was not received from the ministry concerned. The court said that this is the last warning and asked the ministry to positively file a reply by April 15.
It directed the joint commissioner of police to facilitate this process. “Since no report has been filed from petroleum ministry, this court will like to have response from secretary, petroleum and of home being the administrative incharge and in control of Official Secrets Act (OSA) under its jurisdiction,” the court said.
The court was hearing bail application of five corporate executives — RIL corporate affairs mager Shailesh Saxe, Jubilant Energy senior executive Subash Chandra, Essar deputy general mager Viy Kumar, Reliance ADAG deputy general mager Rishi And and Cairns India general mager K.K. ik — who are under judicial custody till April 15. Virender Kumar, employed as a casual worker in the defence ministry, has also sought bail.
Former jourlist Santanu Saikia, who runs a web portal and covered the crime beat for several years, and Prayas Jain, a Melbourne-based energy consultant, were also booked by Delhi Police in the case.
The other accused are Lalta Prasad, 36, and Rakesh Kumar, 30 — both brothers and residents of Delhi, Rajkumar Chaubey, 39, a resident of Ghaziabad, government employees Asharam, 58, and Ishwar Singh, 56. (IANS)