A Delhi court on Friday asked the Petroleum and Union Home Secretaries to file reports on the nature of the documents stolen from the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas.
While passing the order, Additional Sessions Judge Raj Kapoor said it was the last opportunity and asked the two Secretaries to file reports by April 15, the next date of hearing.
“Since no report has been filed by the Petroleum Ministry, the court would like to have a response from it and the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA)…”
The court sought a response from the MHA, saying that it is the administrative head and in control of the Official Secrets Act under its jurisdiction.
The Judge was hearing bail applications filed by five corporate executives, Shailesh Saxena of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), Rishi Anand of Anil Dhirubai Ambani Group (ADAG), Vinay Kumar of Essar, K.K. Naik of Cairn and Subhash Chandra of Jubilant Energy. They are in judicial custody for the past 50 days.
Earlier, the investigating officer submitted before the court that he had not received any report on the nature of the documents from the Ministry.
The court had earlier given two opportunities to the investigating officer to file a report as to whether the documents were classified or confidential.
Shailesh Saxena’s counsel Ramesh Gupta questioned the long time the police were taking to verify the documents. The liberty of his client was being curtailed unnecessarily, Mr. Gupta said.
