The probe into leak of documents from Union ministries has now reached the doorstep of the Defence Ministry. Delhi Police on Tuesday arrested housekeeping staffer Virender Singh from MoD for allegedly providing fake IDs, blank letterheads and passes to suspects arrested from the petroleum ministry last week.
Police said Singh (31) only helped other suspects acquire fake IDs and no documents were recovered from him. A Colonel who Singh worked under has also been called in for questioning.
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Police sources said Singh also provided Lalta Prasad blank letterheads for preparing forged letters, which were used to drive Raj Kumar Chaubey’s vehicle on Petroleum Ministry premises. “A letter saying that the vehicle is under a contract signed between one Dharam Singh Travel Agency and Office of the Director General of Audit, Defence Services, L-II Block, Brassey Avenue was also recovered,” they added.
Sources said Singh had been providing fake ID cards and passes to Prasad for over six years and had helped others procure such papers for coal and power ministries. They added that Singh would steal letterheads and photocopy them. He charged between Rs 5,000 and Rs 7,000 for letterheads and Rs 10,000 to 15,000 for ID cards.
Police are now trying to ascertain the identity of the people who approached Singh for fake IDs. “We need to ascertain how many people bought material from Singh. This will lead us to more persons who enter ministries using fake IDs to procure confidential documents,” they said.
Meanwhile, seeking a one-day police custody of Singh, the investigating officer told the Delhi court: “Virender Kumar worked as housekeeping staffer at the Indian Defence Accounts Services with Defence Ministry. He got fake ID cards and gave it to Lalta Prasad. These cards were blank but had photo stamps. He has given such IDs to others too. We need to ascertain from where did he got these IDs and who he gave them to.”
Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Sanjay Khanagwal granted police a single-day police custody of Singh.
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Senior advocate Ramesh Gupta, counsel for RIL’s Shailesh Saxena, asked the court to direct jail authorities to ascertain the cause for “urinated blood” passed by Saxena. The court directed the jail superintendent to examine the accused and file a report on within two days. It also directed that Saxena is treated properly.
Sandeep Kapur, defence counsel for Jubilant Energy’s Subhash Chandra requested the court to allow his client to record the alleged incident of being slapped by police. The other four defence counsels also alleged that their clients were asked to sign on blank papers and sought similar requests. The court asked all to move an application in this regard.
The Delhi court has now sent Shailesh Saxena from RIL, Vinay Kumar from Essar, K K Naik from Cairns India, Subhash Chandra from Jubilant Energy and Rishi Anand from Reliance ADAG to judicial custody till March 5.
Kaunain Sheriff M is an award-winning investigative journalist and the National Health Editor at The Indian Express. He is the author of Johnson & Johnson Files: The Indian Secrets of a Global Giant, an investigation into one of the world’s most powerful pharmaceutical companies.
With over a decade of experience, Kaunain brings deep expertise in three areas of investigative journalism: law, health, and data. He currently leads The Indian Express newsroom’s in-depth coverage of health.
His work has earned some of the most prestigious honours in journalism, including the Ramnath Goenka Award for Excellence in Journalism, the Society of Publishers in Asia (SOPA) Award, and the Mumbai Press Club’s Red Ink Award.
Kaunain has also collaborated on major global investigations. He was part of the Implant Files project with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), which exposed malpractices in the medical device industry across the world. He also contributed to an international investigation that uncovered how a Chinese big-data firm was monitoring thousands of prominent Indian individuals and institutions in real time.
Over the years, he has reported on several high-profile criminal trials, including the Hashimpura massacre, the 2G spectrum scam, and the coal block allocation case. Within The Indian Express, he has been honoured three times with the Indian Express Excellence Award for his investigations—on the anti-Sikh riots, the Vyapam exam scam, and the abuse of the National Security Act in Uttar Pradesh. ... Read More
