It's a Rs 10,000 cr scam, says key accused in corporate espionage

 A key accused in the corporate espionage case on Saturday claimed that it was a Rs 10,000 crore (Rs 100 billion) scam that he was trying to uncover as police said documents seized from corporate executives related to "national security" that can attract Official Secrets Act provisions. 

Meanwhile, a local court remanded the five arrested corporate executives in police custody till February 24 for further questioning. Delhi Police also conducted raids in Delhi and in nearby Noida looking for stolen documents from offices of petroleum companies. 

Santanu Saikia, a former journalist, now an energy consultant running a website, claimed to reporters outside a Crime Branch office that it was a Rs 10,000 crore scam, which he was trying to uncover. "Please quote me," he said as policemen took him in for interrogation. 

Reacting to his claim, Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said Saikia was saying such things for covering up his own defence. 

"Let him spill out all the information he has. The primary accusation is that somebody stole the papers from the ministry. Police is investigating. Anybody has the right to tell everything to the police," he said. 

Pradhan said police is doing an independent job and everything will be clear after investigation. Law will take its course, whoever they may be, he said when asked about the arrest of executives of private companies. 

Producing the five corporate executives arrested on Friday before Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Sanjay Khanagwal, the police said, "National interest was taken for a ride in the case. 

"Documents related to national security have also been recovered. This may attract charges under the Official Secrets Act." 

After searching Jain's office, the police team took him to the Noida office of Jubilant Energy. His office and some other rooms were searched by the police to recover stolen documents. 

Office of another petroleum company whose executive was also one of them arrested was also raided by the police. Laptop and computers of the arrested officials have been seized by investigators which would be sent for forensic analysis. 

Asked about the issue, Delhi Police Commissioner B S Bassi said, "We have searched places which were necessary for the course of investigation. We may further raid places as our aim is to reach the bottom of the whole thing." 

The police chief also said that investigation is on in the case and it will end only when a charge sheet will be filed. "We need to know since how long this has been going on and who all benefited from it," said a senior official. 

According to police, all these company executives allegedly received stolen documents which have been recovered by police teams during raids from their establishments. 

Saxena is Manager, corporate affairs, Reliance Industries Limited; Chandra is senior executive, Jubilant Energy; Anand is DGM, Reliance ADAG; Vinay is DGM, Essar and Naik is GM, Cairns India. 

They have been booked under IPC sections 120 B (criminal conspiracy) and 411 (dishonestly receiving stolen property). 

The case FIR, produced in a local court on Friday said an input on the National Gas Grid for the Finance Minister's Budget speech of 2015-16 is among the various "secret" documents recovered from the accused.