Court acquits accused in 35-year-old Official Secrets Act case

In a 35-year-old case, a special court today acquitted former personal assistant of a director in Ministry of Petroleum, Chemicals and Fertilisers and another official of the offence of leaking out secret information about setting up of ammonia plants in Maharashtra and Gujarat.
Special CBI judge Sanjeev Aggarwal absolved K L Arora, a retired public servant, and N G Sheth, the then regional manager of Industrial Consulting Bureau, of the offences of criminal conspiracy and criminal breach of trust by public servant of the IPC and provisions of the Official Secrets Act.
Advocate Satyanarain Vashisht, who represented Sheth, said both the accused are over 75 years old and are at present out on bail.

Initially, there were seven accused of whom four died and one pleaded guilty and the court had framed charges against Arora and Sheth in 2012.
The CBI case dated back to 1979, when the Centre had awarded contracts for setting up ammonia plants at Thal-Vaishet in Maharashtra and Hazira in Gujarat to US-based M/s C F Braun & Company.
The decision taken by the Union government was, however, reversed and the contracts were awarded to some other firms from Denmark and the UK in August 1980.

At around the same time, some classified documents from the Ministry of Petroleum relating to the award of contract were reported to have been leaked out.

CBI registered a case in March 1981 after its probe found that Arora was allegedly responsible for leaking the secret information to other co-accused.
These included a former chairman of the Industrial Consulting Bureau, which was then the Indian consultant of the US company, and a branch manager at whose behest the secret documents were procured.
CBI had also booked a senior liaison officer, a liaison assistant and a retired IAS officer, who was appointed as adviser to one of the companies in the fray for the contract.
Two of the co-accused were granted pardon by magistrate's court in August 1981 after they turned approvers. They, along with two other co-accused, died during the pendency of the case. Another accused opted for plea bargaining to plead guilty.