PetroGate: Court to hear bail pleas of six accused on April 22

New Delhi: A Delhi court will hear on April 22 arguments on the bail pleas of six accused, including five corporate executives, arrested in the Petroleum Ministry documents leak case.

Hours after Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Sanjay Khanagwal took cognisance of the charge sheet filed by Crime Branch of Delhi Police against the 13 arrested accused in the case, the matter pertaining to bail of these six accused came up for hearing before Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) Raj Kapoor.

As soon as the hearing began, the public prosecutor said that charge sheet in the case has been filed on April 18 and he needs time to go through the same before advancing the arguments.

"Charge sheet has been filed and copies have been supplied (to the accused). I need time to go through the charge sheet," the prosecutor said.

Senior advocate Ramesh Gupta, who appeared for Shailesh Saxena of Reliance Industries Ltd and Vinay Kumar of Essar, said if the prosecutor needs time to go through the charge sheet before advancing arguments, the court can give interim bail to the accused.

"Charge sheet has been filed and they (police) have not added any sections which prohibit this court from granting bail," Gupta said, adding, "the investigation is complete and there is no apprehension that they (accused) will flee from justice."

The prosecutor, however, said that nature of allegations were also required to be seen and the court should also go through the case file.

Later, the court directed that the case file be produced before it from the magisterial court and fixed the matter for hearing on April 22.

The court was hearing the bail pleas of six accused -- Shailesh Saxena, Vinay Kumar, Subhash Chandra from Jubilant Energy, Reliance ADAG DGM Rishi Anand, Cairns India's GM K K Naik and Virender Kumar, a Defence Ministry staff member.

The five corporate executives have moved the bail plea before the sessions court after their earlier pleas were dismissed by the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate on March 24.