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Court grants bail to 6 accused in petroleum ministry leak case

Delhi court on Monday granted bail to six persons, including four corporate executives and a journalist, who had been arrested in February in connection with the petroleum ministry documents leak case.

Additional Sessions Judge Gurdeep Singh Saini gave bail to Shailesh Saxena of Reliance Industries Ltd, Vinay Kumar of Essar, Rishi Anand of Reliance ADAG, Cairn India's K.K. Nayak, journalist Santanu Saikia and Virender on bail on a personal bond of Rs 50,000 with one surety of the like amount.

During the arguments on bail plea, the counsel appearing for the accused told the court that they were seeking relief on ground of parity as one of the co-accused, Jubilant Energy's Subhash Chandra, has already been granted bail.

The defence counsel also said that the Crime Branch of Delhi Police has already filed chargesheet in the case and the provisions of Official Secrets Act have not been invoked.

All the six accused also said that the allegations against them were quite similar to that of Chandra, who has already been granted bail by the court in the matter.

Opposing their bail pleas, the police said that some confidential documents were recovered from the possession of the accused.

On April 29, the court had fixed May 5 as the date for hearing the arguments on their bail pleas after the advocates appearing for the accused sought adjournment on account of strike being observed by lawyers' body.

On April 27, the chief metropolitan magistrate had dismissed the bail pleas of these five corporate executives.

The CMM had also dismissed the bail plea of Saikia, after which he approached the sessions court.

Delhi Police had earlier told the court that offence committed in the case was covered under Official Secrets Act (OSA) and an inquiry was under way.

The police had made this submission while opposing the bail plea of Subhash Chandra, whose counsel had argued that the chargesheet filed in the case says that no secret documents were recovered from the possession of Chandra.

The Crime Branch of Delhi Police has chargesheeted 13 accused in the case.

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