Petro Gate: Police file charge sheet against 13 accused

NEW DELHI: The crime branch of the Delhi police on Saturday filed the first charge sheet against 13 persons arrested in connection with alleged document leaks from the petroleum ministry. According to the police, the accused have been charged with offences punishable under sections 457 (trespass), 380 (theft), 420 (cheating), 468 (forgery for the purpose of cheating), 471 (using as genuine forged documents), 120-B (criminal conspiracy) and 34 (common intention) of IPC. Except section 457, which carries a punishment of up to 15 years with a fine, all the other offences are punishable up to seven years and a fine. Police sources said provisions of the stringent Official Secrets Act (OSA) — which carries a punishment of 14 years in jail — have not been invoked against the accused yet because the final report from petroleum ministry is awaited.

The charge sheet was submitted before metropolitan magistrate Akash Jain, who fixed April 20 as the date of hearing. The court has sent the 42-page charge sheet for consideration before chief metropolitan magistrate Sanjay Khanagwal, who was on leave. The police have cited 42 prosecution witnesses in the case. Earlier, the ministry of petroleum and natural gas in its report had told the court that eight documents recovered from the accused in the case were classified in nature and none of documents seized from them were in public domain.

Those named in the charge sheet include five corporate executives — Shailesh Saxena of RIL, Vinay Kumar from Essar, KK Naik from Cairn India, Subhash Chandra of Jubilant Energy and Rishi Anand from Reliance ADAG. The other eight are Ishwar Singh, Asharam, Rajkumar Chaubey, Lalta Prasad, Rakesh Kumar, Virender Kumar, energy consultant Prayas Jain and former journalist Santanu Saikia. All the accused are in judicial custody.

On April 10, the court had sought reports from the home and the petroleum ministries about the nature of documents recovered by the investigators during their probe.