Defence Ministry staffer Virender Kumar, arrested for his alleged involvement in the corporate espionage case, was sent to judicial custody till March 5 by a Delhi court on Wednesday. Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Sanjay Khanagwal sent Kumar to eight-day judicial custody after the Crime Branch of the Delhi Police confirmed that he was not required for custodial interrogation.
Kumar was arrested on February 23 for allegedly stealing an identity card of an auditor at Indian Defence Accounts Service and providing the same to one of the accused, lalta Prasad, who used it to secure entry in various Ministries.
The court had on Tuesday sent five corporate executives — Shailesh Saxena of RIl, Vinay Kumar of Essar, KK Naik of Cairns India, Subhash Chandra of Jubilant Energy and Rishi Anand of Reliance ADAG — to judicial custody till March 5.
According to police, the materials recovered from the accused show that “national security was taken for a ride”. Earlier, the counsel for these five accused had alleged that their clients were forced to sign blank papers in police custody.
Saxena is Manager, Corporate Affairs, Reliance Industries limited (RIl); Chandra is senior executive, Jubilant Energy; Anand is DGM, Reliance ADAG; Vinay is DGM, Essar and Naik is GM, Cairns India.
The five accused allegedly procured documents from lalta Prasad and Rakesh, who in turn supplied the documents to rival companies. Besides them, the police had arrested lalta Prasad, Rakesh Kumar, Prayas Jain, Shantanu Saikia, Ishwar Singh, Asharam and Rajkumar Chaubey, who are also in judicial custody.