Petro Gate: Judicial custody of five accused extended

A Delhi court today extended till July 4 the judicial custody of five accused, arrested in connection with the Petroleum Ministry documents leak case.
Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (CMM) Sanjay Khanagwal extended the custody of the accused who were produced before the court on expiry of their 14-day judicial remand.
"IO (investigating officer) is directed to supply the deficient documents to all the accused in compliance of section 207 of CrPC. Judicial remand of five accused extended till July 4. Put up for further hearing on July 4," the CMM said.
The five accused whose custody was extended are Asharam, Ishwar Singh (multi-tasking staff of Petroleum Ministry), Asharam's sons Lalta Prasad, Rakesh Kumar (both former staff of the Ministry) and Rajkumar Chaubey (a driver).

Eight other accused including five corporate executives -- Shailesh Saxena of Reliance Industries Ltd, Vinay Kumar of Essar, Rishi Anand of Reliance ADAG, Cairns India's K K Nayak and Jubiliant Energy's Subhash Chandra have already been enlarged on bail.
During the hearing, counsels for corporate executives moved separate applications seeking deficient documents from the IO.

They argued that documents filed before the court in sealed cover have been not been provided to the accused and neither have the documents relied upon by the police in the charge sheet been given to them.
The CMM directed the IO to provide all the deficient documents to the accused in compliance with section 207 of CrPC.

Crime Branch of Delhi Police has charge sheeted 13 accused in the case.
Earlier, the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas had informed the court that eight documents recovered from the accused in the case were classified in nature and none of these were in public domain.