Navy War Room leak case: HC's no to stay on framing of charges

The Delhi High Court today refused to direct a special court here not to pronounce its order on framing of charges in the 2006 Naval War Room leak case till the plea of accused Abhishek Verma seeking copy of "privileged" documents is decided.
"I am not going to either stay the proceedings before the trial court or ask it not to pronounce the order on charge. Let the proceedings continue in the lower court," Justice V P Vaish said.
Verma, a city businessman, approached the high court seeking a direction to CBI that he be given copies of all the documents, relied upon by the agency, to enable him to oppose the framing of charges in the case.

"I am arguing on charge that too on day-to-day basis without being given all the documents. It is denial of fair trial as the CBI is claiming privilege over certain documents under the Official Secrets (OS) Act," the counsel for Verma said, adding that the trial court be, at least, asked not to pronounce its order on charge till this court decides my petition.
Besides Verma, the other five accused in the case are former Navy officer Kulbhushan Prashar, former naval commander Vijender Rana, sacked naval commander V K Jha, former IAF Wing Commander S L Surve and Ravi Shankaran, who is still in the United Kingdom.

The court has now fixed the matter for hearing on August 13.
The 2006 Navy War Room leak case involves leaking of over 7000 pages of defence information of sensitive nature from the Naval war room and air defence headquarters, having a direct bearing on national security.