Disclosure statements of accused suggest more corporates could have accessed papers

Former journalist Santanu Saikia, in his disclosure statement, stated that he used to charge as high as Rs 3 lakh for access to information.

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Former journalist Santanu Saikia, in his disclosure statement, stated that he has about 200 clients, who he charges as high as Rs 3 lakh for access to information.

The network of corporates who allegedly got access to the leaked documents is likely to be much wider, disclosure statements of the accused have suggested.

Former journalist Santanu Saikia, in his disclosure statement, stated that he has about 200 clients, who he charges as high as Rs 3 lakh for access to information. Prayas Jain of Metis Business Solutions, in his disclosure statement, said he has sixty clients. He also revealed the names of at least nine other corporates doing businesses in sectors involving steel, cement and infrastructure.

“I had about 200 clients. I was aware that these secret documents would help me in my website for updating my clients and, in turn, I would get good returns from my clients,” Saikia stated in his disclosure.

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Reliance’s Shailesh Saxena, in his disclosure statement, said he used to pay Rs 30,000 per month to accused Lalta Prasad and Rakesh Kumar to get documents once a week. He said he used to get that amount reimbursed under the “entertainment” category. He further said that the documents were “destroyed” after analysis, but a few were kept for “further analysis”.

Rishi Anand of Reliance ADAG, in his statement, said he used to take papers from Prasad and Kumar “once a week” and then present a “report” to the company. K K Naik of Cairns India stated his “senior officers” were aware of the fact that he was procuring “stolen documents” from the ministry. Vinay Kumar of Essar stated that the “outcome” of the analysed documents was “conveyed” to senior officers and used in “making policies” of the company for “higher gains”.

Kaunain Sheriff M

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

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