The Central Vigilance Commission has reportedly picked up documents at the office of Directorate-General of Hydrocarbons (DGH) V.K. Sibal, who is under investigation for his alleged role in favouring the Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) in approving the “inflated” capex (capital expenditure) for the KG Basin D6 block.
Mr. Sibal has come under fire for allegedly seeking favours for his family members and himself from the RIL group in return for doing favours to that company, a charge denied by him.
The CVC has already written to the Central Bureau of Investigation to conduct a preliminary probe into the charges levelled against Mr. Sibal by doing a field inspection.
Earlier reports indicated that a CBI team visited Mr. Sibal’s office on Friday evening and conducted searches. Mr. Sibal said CVC officials had visited the Noida office of the DGH on the outskirts of the capital. It is learnt that Mr. Sibal had also met CVC Secretary K.S. Ramasubban earlier this week to put across his point. It was Mr. Ramasubban who wrote to the CBI Director for a preliminary probe.
The CVC had reportedly deputed two technical teams to go across to the DGH headquarters and conduct inspection of documents relating to the RIL issue. However, it was not known whether the CVC team found anything specific but they reportedly took away certain documents for studying them further.
Officials said it was intriguing that after recommending a CBI probe, the CVC had gone ahead and made inspections on its own.
