The sensational corporate espionage scandal today got murkier with the arrest of two energy consultants as confidential documents including an input for the upcoming Finance Minister's budget speech were allegedly leaked in the whole operation.
The alleged pilfering of 'secret' documents, which was thought to have been a racket confined to the Petroleum ministry, actually covered matters in finance, coal and power ministries, Delhi Police said today.
After yesterday's arrest of five people, including two Oil Ministry staffers and three middlemen, two energy consultants--Santanu Saikia, a former journalist, now running a petro web portal and Prayas Jain--were arrested today as they were suspected to be receivers of the stolen documents.
"We have arrested two people, one of them is Santanu Saikia and the other is Prayas Jain. Both of them are some sort of independent consultants. One of them (Saikia) runs a website where he would run his analysis and people would subscribe to it. These to have been arrested and investigation is on," Police Commissioner B S Bassi said.
The case FIR, produced in a local court, 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.
Besides, police has also recovered a letter of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Principal Secretary Nripendra Misra, according to the FIR in the case presented to Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Sanjay Khanagwal, who heard the proceedings for remand of the accused.
"Photocopy of documents with heading input material on National Gas Grid for inclusion in Finance Minister's budget speech 2015-16," the crime branch has said in its FIR filed in the case.
All the seven were produced before Khanagwal who remanded Lalta Prasad and Rajesh Kumar (Oil Ministry staffers) and Jain and Saikia to police custody till February 23 after police said "sensitive" documents have been recovered.
Police alleged that "incriminating" documents of the Coal, Power and other ministries were recovered from the possession of the accused who were supplying these to certain corporate houses for benefit.
Regarding the other three accused--Ishwar Singh, Asharam and Rajkumar Chaubey, the police said they were not required for custodial interrogation, so they be remanded in judicial custody.
