CBI questions Chitale, Mohanan

CBI is today understood to have confronted arrested chartered accountant Khemchand Gandhi with Vice-President (Finance) of Reliance Industries Limited K V Mohanan in connection with alleged sale of confidential government documents to the corporate.
Sources in the agency said noted Chartered Accountant Rajendra Chitale was also questioned today at the agency headquarters here.
They said Mohanan, who was questioned yesterday as well, was shown documents recovered from Gandhi, who was among the first ones to be arrested in the case.
The sources said Chitale was also asked questions about his clients and recovery of confidential documents from the office of his firm in Mumbai. They said he was also questioned in front of his partner Paresh who has already been arrested by the agency.

It has emerged during the questioning that Mohanan had allegedly been in regular touch with Gandhi for documents related to policies on foreign investment in multi-brand retail which has brought him under the suspicion of the CBI.
Accepting that summons were served on one of their officials, RIL had said, "The company is ascertaining the facts and will be able to decide a course of action after his interaction with the authorities."

Earlier, CBI had said that "first and second level of decision making in the Finance Ministry were compromised", but now the agency sources said probe may bring into scanner officials above these levels.

In connection with leak of confidential documents, CBI has so far arrested six persons including an Under Secretary in the Department of Disinvestment and Grievances Ashok Kumar Singh, Assistant in FIPB section Ram Niwas, Section Officer in the Department of Economic Affairs Lala Ram Sharma, Mumbai based Chartered Accountant Khemchand Gandhi and Paresh Chimanlal Buddhadeb, a partner in Chitale and Associates.
It is alleged that the government servants were passing on documents related to foreign investment policies, which were being floated in the ministries, to Gandhi, who in turn passed them on to big corporates for a price.