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Corporate espionage: Delhi Police question 7 staffers of Coal, Petroleum ministries

The Crime Branch of Delhi Police Wednesday questioned seven staffers of the Coal and Petroleum ministries. Sources said that two officials from the Power Ministry have also been summoned.

According to sources, two staffers from the Coal Ministry and five from the Petroleum ministry were questioned as the police suspected their involvement in the case. However, no fresh arrests have been made.

Police said the two staffers from the Coal Ministry were also reportedly on the payroll of Lokesh (arrested earlier) and allegedly leaked documents to him. The police had recovered sensitive documents of coal auctioning and auditing from Lokesh’s possession. Police suspect that Lokesh, who worked for Infraline, used to procure documents from other ministries apart from Coal, Power and Petroleum.
The Defence Ministry staff member, who was arrested for his alleged involvement in the corporate espionage case for allegedly supplying fake ID cards and letterheads of the Ministry to Lalta Prasad and Rakesh Kumar, was on Wednesday sent to judicial custody till March 5 by a Delhi court. Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Sanjay Khanagwal remanded Defence Ministry’s housekeeping staff member Virender Singh to eight-day judicial custody after the Crime Branch of Delhi Police said he was not required for custodial interrogation.

Sources said that seniors of the five corporate executives from Essar, ADAG, RIL, Jubilant Energy and Cairn India will soon be summoned as the executives have said during the interrogation that they passed on confidential documents to their seniors. More arrests are likely to me made in the case, police said.

Meanwhile, the police have also sent the recovered documents for an analysis to ascertain if Official Secrets Act will be invoked in the matter, police said.


source: http://indianexpress.com