HC rejects RIL's plea against transfer of cases

The Delhi High Court today rejected the plea of Reliance Industries (RIL) challenging the sending of cases, registered against its officials under the Official Secrets Act relating to seizure of certain classified documents from its office in 2008, to the sessions court.

Justice S N Dhingra rejected the technical plea raised by the company that statements of witnesses were to be recorded before sending it to the sessions court for the trial.

RIL had contended that the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate had referred the case for trial before the sessions judge without recording the statements of the witnesses.

However, Justice Dhingra said "I find no force in the contention of the petitioners that the CMM was supposed to record testimony of witnesses of the complainant before sending the case to the court of sessions."

The court further said that in fact the CMM has not transferred the case to the sessions court but due to the notification of the central government, the power to try the cases under Official Secret Act has been transferred to sessions judge.

"Even otherwise, I find that this argument is devoid of merits as in this case, the court of CMM had not committed the case to the court of sessions.

"In fact, the powers of the CMM to try the case under Official Secrets Act has been withdrawn in view of withdrawal of notification by Union of India and only the sessions judge now has the power to conduct a trial in view of transfer of cases pending before CMM to the sessions judge vide an administrative order of this court upheld by a division bench of this court," the court said.

It said after the completion of the investigation by the authority in a case based on the material on record, there is no need to record the statement of the witness before sending the matter for session trial.

"I consider that once detailed investigation into an offence has been conducted by investigating agency and material showing commission of offence by accused is on record and it is this material which is relied upon by prosecution. There is no requirement of recording statements under Section 208 CrPC by a magistrate and supply of copies under Section 208 CrPC," the court said.

The investigating authorities had recovered certain photocopies of secret documents of the Cabinet Secretary and the Rashtrapati Bhawan from the table drawer of V Balasubramaniam, Group President of RIL.

The search warrant was secured by the probe authorities for investigating some other cases.

A case was registered in Hauz Khaz police station under Official Secret Act, which was later transferred to CBI for investigation.