A special court has allowed a CBI plea seeking its nod to take handwriting and specimen signatures of an accused who was arrested in a case in which classified government documents were allegedly procured and passed on to others.
Special CBI Judge S C Rajan allowed the plea after accused Ram Niwas, a private person, said he had no objection if the agency's application was allowed.
"After going through the contents of the application filed by inspector Anand Swarup, it is submitted by the accused that he does not want to file reply to this application and he has no objection in allowing of the same, as he is ready to give his handwriting and specimen signatures...," the court said.
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"In view of the submissions made by accused Ram Niwas, I have also gone through the contents of the application and I, therefore, allow this application of the CBI," the judge said.
Niwas and five other accused were arrested by CBI in the case in which the agency had earlier informed the court that a large number of "incriminating" documents had been seized from the accused, who were alleged to be procuring and passing on classified documents to others.
The co-accused in the case are -- Ashok Kumar Singh, who was working as under-secretary in Department of Disinvestment in the Finance Ministry, Lala Ram Sharma, a section officer in the Department of Economic Affairs and Daljeet Singh, upper division clerk in Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion of Ministry of Commerce and Industries.
Besides them, CBI had also arrested Khemchand Gandhi, a chartered accountant and Paresh Chimanlal Budhdev, partner in Mumbai-based Chitale and Associates in the case. These accused were earlier granted bail by the court.
CBI had conducted raids and arrested the accused after lodging a case of criminal conspiracy and theft under the IPC and misuse of official position under the Prevention of Corruption Act against them.
CBI sources had claimed a 'trove' of confidential documents and Rs 60 lakh in cash were recovered from Gandhi's residence.
It was alleged that the government servants were passing on documents relating to foreign investment policies in the ministries to Gandhi, who in turn provided them to corporates for a price.
