Leakgate: Six accused granted bail by Delhi HC

ALL THE SIX ACCUSED SAID THAT THE ALLEGATIONS AGAINST THEM WERE SIMILAR TO THAT OF SUBHASH CHANDRA, WHO HAS ALREADY BEEN GRANTED BAIL BY THE COURT IN THE MATTER

Six men, arrested in February for allegedly leaking classified government documents, were on Tuesday granted bail by a Delhi court after they sought parity with their coaccused, a corporate executive who had been let out on bail last week.

Additional sessions judge Gurdeep Singh Saini enlarged Shailesh Saxena of Reliance Industries Ltd, Vinay Kumar of Essar, Rishi Anand of Reliance ADAG, Cairns India’s KK Nayak, journalist Shantanu Saikia and Virender on bail on a personal bond of ` 50,000 each with one surety of the like amount.

During the arguments on the 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, had already been granted bail on the basis that no confidential documents were found in his possession.

The defence counsel also said that the Crime Branch of the Delhi Police had already filed a charge sheet against his client, and had not invoked Official Secrets Act as in Chandra’s case.

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.

The bail pleas of these five cor porate executives were earlier dismissed by the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (CMM), who had on April 27 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 on this aspect was underway.

Crime Branch of Delhi Police has charge sheeted 13 accused in the case.