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In the government documents leak case, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) summoned a senior official at Reliance Industries (RIL) and a chartered accountant, who is on several company boards, to question them on alleged links with those arrested. Rajendra Chitale, partner in Mumbai-based law firm Chitale & Associates, has been summoned this week. Another partner in the firm, Paresh Chimanlal Buddhadev, was taken in CBI custody last week for alleged involvement in obtaining classified government records and for destruction of evidence.
Chitale has been an independent director on the boards of several listed companies, including Reliance Capital, Reliance Life Insurance, Reliance General Insurance, Ambuja Cements, Life Insurance Corporation, Unit Trust of India, JM Financial National Securities Clearing Corporation, JM Financial Asset Management, SBI Capital Markets, Small Industries Development Bank of India and Hinduja Ventures. An executive of one of these firms said, “He was on board of many companies as an independent director, including our firm. But he was not involved in an executive role.”
The RIL official, not named by the CBI, has been called for alleged links with chartered accountant Khemchand Gandhi, an arrested suspect. The executive has been asked to appear before the agency on Wednesday. RIL declined to comment.
Sources said the agency hasn’t established if RIL was among the beneficiaries of document leaks from the Union finance and commerce ministries. “We are looking into the role of many other companies,” a source said. Around 12 companies are under the CBI scanner for allegedly benefiting from the leaked documents.
CBI sources said the agency arrested an upper division clerk, Daljeet Singh, in the department of industrial policy and promotion under the commerce ministry, for allegedly leaking or selling “confidential documents to his counterpart in the finance ministry. Who, in turn, was “giving it away for a consideration” to Gandhi. This is the sixth arrest by CBI in this case.
Last week, CBI arrested three finance and commerce ministry officials for allegedly selling confidential government documents to Gandhi, who allegedly later passed it on to various corporate houses. The documents recovered were mainly related to Foreign Investment Promotion Board proposals. Among government officials, the agency has arrested Lala Ram Sharma, a section officer in the department of economic affairs; Ram Niwas, an assistant in the same department, and Ashok Kumar Singh, undersecretary in the department of disinvestment.
Sources said documents related to the controversial Rs 2,000 crore Jet-Etihad deal were among those leaked by the government officials to middlemen. News agency Press Trust of India reported the records related to the deal were leaked from the proposal stage to the final document.
CBI probe also reportedly reveals the role of a manager at consultancy group PricewaterhouseCoopers in procuring documents from the finance ministry. The company had stated on Saturday the official had met CBI officials and given clarifications on FIPB applications filed by its clients. Sources said the investigation revealed the consultancy firm was seeking inputs for even those agencies not hired by the company.
