The investigating officer in the Petroleum Ministry’s documents theft case on Tuesday informed a Delhi court that he would soon call higher officials of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG), and three other companies for interrogation.
The officer made this submission before Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Sanjay Khanagwal when the Magistrate asked him what he had done in the case during the police remand of five executives — Shailesh Saxena of RIL, Rishi Anand of ADAG, Vinay Kumar of Essar, K.K. Naik of Cairn, and Subhash Chandra of Jubiliant Energy. These officials were in the custody of the Delhi Police for three days.
Seeking judicial remand of the five officials, the officer said that these officials had been confronted with the documents already seized.
“Further to it, officials higher in the hierarchy of these officials would be called for questioning,” the investigating officer submitted before the court. However, he admitted that no fresh documents had been recovered during the police custody of these officials.
The officer informed the court that it had on Monday called six persons for questioning and they had been also summoned on Tuesday for further interrogation.
The Crime Branch of the Delhi Police also produced a contractual employee of the Defence Audit, Birender, and sought his police remand. He was arrested on Monday night. The court granted one-day police remand for him.
The employee was doing housekeeping job in the Defence Audit. The police have charged him with stealing blank-printed identity cards from the office and supplying them to Lalta Prasad, one of the accused, which the latter filled in and used them as official entry passes.
Later, the court remanded the five private companies’ executives to judicial custody till March 5.
The police have so far arrested 14 persons in the case. Of them, 12 are in judicial custody and two in police custody.
