Petro Gate: Police file charges against 13 suspects

New Delhi, April 18

Delhi Police on Saturday filed charges against 13 persons arrested in connection with the Petroleum Ministry document leak case.

The charge sheet will be considered on April 20 before the Metropolitan Magistrate formally frames charges.

According to police sources, the suspects 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 the Indian Penal Code. However, sources said provisions of the stringent Official Secrets Act (OSA) have yet to be invoked against the suspects.

The police have 42 prosecution witnesses in the case. On April 15, 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 and were not in the public domain.

Among the 13 accused are five corporate executives — Shailesh Saxena from RIL, Vinay Kumar from Essar, KK Naik from Cairns India, Subhash Chandra from Jubilant Energy and Rishi Anand from Reliance ADAG.

The remaining suspects are Ishwar Singh, Asharam, Rajkumar Chaubey, Lalta Prasad, Rakesh Kumar, Virender Kumar, energy consultant Prayas Jain and journalist Shantanu Saikia.

All suspects are currently in judicial custody.

On February 20, police had arrested the five corporate executives for their suspected involvement in procuring highly classified documents from Prasad and Kumar in return for money.

These documents are then believed to have been supplied to firms.

A total of 16 people have so far been arrested so far in connection with the two separate FIRs lodged by Crime Branch. — PTI