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Corporate Espionage Case: Court gives final opportunity to argue on bail

The bail pleas of the five accused -- Shailesh Saxena of Reliance Industries Ltd, Vinay Kumar of Essar, Rishi Anand of Reliance ADAG, Subhash Chandra from Jubilant Energy and Cairns India's K K Nayak -- were listed for hearing on Friday.

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 A Delhi court on Friday gave a final opportunity to the five corporate executives arrested in the Petroleum Ministry documents leak case to advance arguments on their bail pleas on April 27 after they pleaded that the hearing be deferred due to a lawyers' strike.

The bail pleas of the five accused -- Shailesh Saxena of Reliance Industries Ltd, Vinay Kumar of Essar, Rishi Anand of Reliance ADAG, Subhash Chandra from Jubilant Energy and Cairns India's K K Nayak -- were listed for hearing on Friday. As soon as the matter was called for hearing, the counsel appearing for the accused sought an adjournment saying that they would advance the arguments on April 27 as the lawyers' body of all the six district courts in Delhi was observing strike.

Lawyers in district courts are observing strike till April 28 against the delay in tabling in Parliament an amended bill regarding enhancement of pecuniary jurisdiction of trial courts. During the hearing, the prosecutor opposed the submissions of defence counsel, saying the arguments should be heard today itself.

"I object to it. If they (accused) can argue on April 27 then why they cannot argue today. There is a strike today and it would continue till April 28. What difference it makes if they will argue today," the prosecutor said.
At this juncture, the defence counsel told Additional Sessions Judge Raj Kapoor that they were seeking time till April 27 only as the strike might be called off by then. "We will argue on April 27 irrespective of the strike. We are seeking adjournment till Monday (April 27) only," the lawyers said adding that on the last date of hearing, the arguments were adjourned as the prosecutor had sought time to go through the charge sheet filed in the case.
Later, the court fixed the matter for hearing bail pleas on April 27 and said that it would be the final opportunity to advance the remaining arguments.

Crime Branch of Delhi Police has chargesheeted 13 arrested accused, including these five, in the case.  The five corporate executives have moved the bail pleas before the sessions court after their earlier applications were dismissed by the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate on March 24.

Earlier, the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas (MoPNG) had informed the court that eight documents recovered from the accused in the case were classified in nature and none of these was in public domain.
The Crime Branch has chargesheeted the 13 accused in the case for alleged offences under various sections of IPC including 457 (trespass), 380 (theft), 420 (cheating), 468 (forgery for the purpose of cheating), 471 (using as genuine forged documents) read with 120-B(criminal conspiracy).

On February 20, police had arrested the five corporate executives alleging that they used to procure classified documents from other arrested accused Lalta Prasad and Rakesh Kumar and used to pay them. The documents were then supplied to the firms by these officials for their benefit, the police had alleged.

Besides them, the police had also arrested Prayas Jain, journalist Shantanu Saikia, Ishwar Singh, Asharam and Rajkumar Chaubey who are also in judicial custody. A total of 16 people have been arrested in connection with two separate FIRs lodged by the police. 

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