rediff.com: 14 days' JC for 2 Reliance officials in OSA case

A Delhi Court on Tuesday remanded two senior officials of the Reliance group to 14 days judicial custody for alleged violations of the Official Secrets Act after some classified documents were recovered from the corporate office in New Delhi.

Rejecting the bail applications of group vice-president A N Sethuraman and Corporate Affairs General Manager Shekhar Adawal, Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Sangita Dhingra Sehgal remanded them to judicial custody till May 13, the Central Bureau of Investigation counsel C Sahay told reporters after the court proceedings.

V Balasubramaniam, the third accused in the CBI complaint filed on March 16, was not present at the court as he had been advised bed rest following a brain tumour operation recently in the United States.

Immediately after, the two officials were taken into court lockup from where they would be taken into judicial custody.

Reacting to the judgement, one of the Reliance counsel B R Handa said, "We will proceed as per the law."

He said as both the Reliance officials were suffering from back ailment, a separate application for supply of medicines in the jail should be allowed.

The court also directed the Reliance counsel N Natarajan to furnish all medical records of Balasubramaniam. The court had taken cognizance of the CBI compliant on April 5 and had summoned the top Reliance officials on Monday.

The CBI had started probe into the matter after Delhi Police recovered four sensitive documents pertaining to internal decisions of the Cabinet from a Reliance office in October 1998 while investigating the Romesh Sharma case.

The CBI said police had seized "photocopies of four secret documents of the government" after breaking open the locked office table of Balasubramaniam in 1998 which relate to "economic sanctions against India" following Pokhran-II in May 1998 and some handwritten notes attached to them.

The CBI complaint said the calligraphy expert after examination of hand-written notes on the secret documents opined that it is "the handwriting of Shekhar Adawal."

The other two documents were "minutes of the 37th meeting of the core group of secretaries on divestment" convened by cabinet secretary on September 21, 1998 and a semi-official letter of September 29 from the then Petroleum Secretary to the then Revenue Secretary about the proposals in respect of hydrocarbon sector."

"Investigations disclosed that the four classified documents pertains to areas which are of crucial interests to Reliance Industries and its group companies," the CBI said.

The CBI said V Balasubramaniam, Sethuraman and Adawal committed offences under section 120-B (criminal conspiracy) read with section 5(4) and 5(2) of the Official Secrets Act for documents one and two, and Balasubramaniam also committed offences under section 5(4) read with 5(2) of the Official Secrets Act for the secret document three and four.



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