Corporate espionage: CBI grills RIl vice-president

The CBI on Wednesday questioned a top official of Reliance Industries ltd. (RIl) for his alleged links with a Mumbai-based chartered accountant, arrested in the corporate espionage case relating to leakage and sale of classified documents relating to foreign investment policy of Ministries of finance and commerce. 

The agency grilled vice- president (Finance) KV Mohanan for about eight hours at the agency headquarters here and is likely to be summoned again on Thursday. 

During the investigation of the case, the links of Mohanan with arrested chartered accountant Khemchand Gandhi had surfaced, sources said. The agency suspects Mohanan was a likely beneficiary of the racket involving leakage and sale of classified documents to corporate houses. 

While the agency officials remained tightlipped on the nature of questions posed to the RIl executive, sources said he was confronted with Gandhi on issues that have emerged during the probe so far. 

Before the arrests in the case, the agency had tracked Gandhi and other accused persons even intercepted a courier company in Mumbai through which an entire confidential file relating to policy on foreign direct investment/foreign institutional investors was recovered.