SC allows prosecution of Reliance honchos in OSA case

NEW DELHI: Three top executives of the undivided Reliance Group - AN Sethuraman, Shankar Adawal and V Balasubramanium - will face criminal proceedings on charges of possessing confidential government documents after the Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to give them any relief.

The court dismissed petitions challenging Delhi High Court order saying "these petitions do not contain any merits".

The company and its three officials are facing a criminal case under the Official Secrets Act over the alleged recovery of some secret documents during search of the office premises of V Balasubramanian, the then Group President of Reliance Industries, in 1998.

They had challenged the October 8, 2010, order of the High Court which had dismissed the technical objections raised by them that before sending the case to the sessions court for prosecution, the chief metropolitan magistrate should have recorded the testimony of witnesses named in the complaint.

However, an SC bench upheld the order of the High Court saying that the present grievance was devoid of merit.

A criminal case was filed in 1998 by Delhi Police against the company and its officials but later considering the sensitivity of the case, it was handed over to the CBI which registered a complaint in 2002.