The Delhi Police on Monday arrested an employee of a Noida-based energy consultancy firm, Infraline Energy, for allegedly procuring classified and secret documents from the coal and power ministries through illegal means.
Lokesh Sharma, 33, was arrested from Dwarka and produced before a city court, which remanded him in police custody for five days. "Various sensitive documents of the ministries of coal, power and others have been recovered from him. A fake government identity card, too, has also been recovered from Sharma," the police told Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Satish Kumar Arora.
The police said Sharma's name appeared during the interrogation of Santanu Saikia and Prayas Jain, who were arrested in a similar but different case, registered last week.
"Lokesh Sharma used to procure documents from the ministries of coal, power and petroleum with the help of staff posted there. Besides, providing documents to his own consultancy firm (Infraline Energy), he used to sell documents to other energy consultants on commercial basis. Two recipients, Saikia of Indian Petro Group and Jain of Metis Energy Solutions, have already been arrested, while raids are continuing on other receivers of the stolen documents," the police stated.
Lokesh's father had at some point worked as a driver in a ministry and because of this, he was aware of loopholes which he exploited.
"Infraline Energy would analyse the documents and bring out newsletters based on the information. We are yet to ascertain the number of its subscribers," Joint Commissioner of Police Ravindra Yadav said. An email to Infraline Energy remained unanswered.
Reacting to the development, Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said, "This government is committed to eradicating corruption. An independent investigation in the matter is on. Nobody is above the law and nobody will be allowed to take the law in his hand."
Sources in the city police's crime branch, investigating the matter following a tip-off from the Intelligence Bureau, said the agency was interrogating at least six junior coal ministry staff and their arrest was imminent.
Earlier, it had arrested Saikia and Jain for allegedly procuring documents from former government staff Lalta Prasad and his brother Rakesh Kumar. The brothers, with the help of junior government employees Asharam and Ishwar Singh, were accused of stealing documents from the offices of oil ministry in Shastri Bhawan. The brothers were also charged with supplying documents to executives Shailesh Saxena of Reliance Industries, Vinay Kumar of Essar, K K Naik of Cairns, Subhash Chandra of Jubilant Energy and Rishi Anand of Reliance ADAG. All have been arrested. Delhi Police Commissioner B S Bassi said the two were separate cases. "It (Monday's arrest) has no link with that case though it belongs in the same class. Since it lacked linkages, we arrested Sharma under a separate First Information Report."
Sources, however, said it would be early to rule out links between the two cases. "A link between Sharma and the brothers is being explored. Prima facie, it seems they are associates and used to share documents," said an investigating officer.
Later in the day, the police took Saikia, Jain, Prasad and Kumar to court, following the expiry of their police custody. The accused alleged they had been made to sign on blank papers. The judge noted their objection and sent them to Delhi's Tihar Jail till March 6.
"One day, I will come true. I will speak at the right opportunity. I have never sold information. I used to only analyse the documents," Saikia told Business Standard, while being escorted to the court room. "It is not about the source. The question is of information," he said, when asked if he was buying stolen information. Saikia, who runs web portal indianpetro.com, has alleged he was covering a Rs 10,000 crore scam.
The Anil Ambani-promoted Reliance ADAG on Monday said no search or raid had been conducted by the police at any of its offices in India. "The workstation of only one specific Reliance Power employee was searched, and no incriminating material of any kind was found," stated the group on Monday. "We are not aware of the circumstances leading to the arrest of that employee, and Reliance Power is fully cooperating with the authorities," it added.
