On Thursday evening, Delhi police made waves when it arrested five people on the charge of stealing classified government documents from the petroleum ministry and leaking them in return for money. Among those detained is an employee of Reliance Industries Limited, India’s largest private sector company.



"The matter is under investigation according to law and we are determined to cooperate in every possible manner," said an RIL official, in a statement released to the media. The Indian Express reported that executives of not just Mukesh Ambani led RIL, but also Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, Essar Group, and Cairn Energy were questioned. The police has said those detained could be booked under the Official Secrets Act which disallows the sharing of confidential government information in public.



For all the sensation in Delhi, this is not the first time that officials of Reliance have faced allegations of leaking confidential government information.



The case of 1998



In October 1998, an enquiry into the theft of a chopper by Romesh Sharma, an alleged aide of Dawood Ibrahim, had led the police to the office and residence of V Balasubramaniam, the Group President of the undivided Reliance group. Known as Balu, he was the company’s chief lobbyist in the national capital. The India Today called the search on his residence in New Friend’s Colony “an act of breathtaking audacity.”



The search allegedly led to the recovery of photocopies of four secret documents from a locked table drawer. The documents included one from a cabinet meeting, the minutes of a meeting on disinvestment, and a document on customs and excise duties for the oil and oil products sector. The documents had been faxed from Balu’s office to a Mumbai number, investigators claimed. The company has refuted the charges.



On November 6, 1998, the police filed a first information report in the case. By November 13, the case was transferred to the Central Bureau of Investigation. It is mandatory for the agency to complete the investigation and file the complaint within three years. But the agency filed the complaint only on 16 March 2002. It asked the courts to condone the delay of about 142 days, attributing it to the time taken in consulting the attorney general, and in seeking clearance from the ministry of home. The criminal case was filed against Balu and two other senior executives of Reliance, Vice President AN Sethuraman, and General Manager Shankar Adawal, under the Official Secrets Act, which carries a minimum prison sentence of three years.



Delays



The company used the delay on the part of the CBI to go to the High Court, asking for the criminal case to be quashed because it had been time-barred. This led to further delays. It took the High Court four years to dismiss the appeal. Reliance then went to the Supreme Court, where its appeal was dismissed in May 2011.



Nearly 14 years after the FIR had been filed, in April 2012, the sessions court framed charges against the three Reliance executives. This should have cleared the decks for the trial in the case to begin. But Reliance has challenged this sessions court order again in the High Court.



According to Delhi high court records, the appeal, which is listed as criminal miscellaneous petition number 2597 of 2012, is pending. On the first date of the hearing, notices were issued by the court. On the next date, the case was admitted. But on the third date when the arguments in the case were supposed to begin, the case was adjourned. The CBI counsel was not present in the court to ask for the next date.



And so, more than 16 years after the police swept down on the offices of Reliance and allegedly recovered leaked government documents, the trial against the company's executives remains incomplete.



