Indian Kanoon - Search engine for Indian Law

"During the course of his interrogation, he disclosed the details about his complicity in the leakage of classified documents to unauthorised persons, which can be seen in the case diaries, which are produced before the Honourable Court for kind perusal. The accused had made important disclosures relating to the commission of the said offences and his complicity therein as well as that of others and the investigating agency is heading towards recovery of the master copy of the entire set of photo copies of the relevant classified/secret documents leaked in the matter to unauthorised agencies pertaining to the contracts in issue, which is very vital for purposes of investigation into the said case."

"The interrogation of accused Shri Nanak Sheth is in progress and master copy of the entire set of photo copies of the relevant secret/classified documents leaked in the matter to unauthorised agencies pertaining to the contracts, which is vital for the purpose of investigation into the said case, is still to be recovered, which is reasonably believed to be in possession/control of the said Shri Sheth."

7. Two days after the arrest of the said Nanak Sheth, i.e., on 20-3-1981, the petitioner filed an anticipatory bail application in the Court of Sessions at Greater Bombay, being Application No. 49 of 1981. The said application was posted for admission on 23-3-1981, and it appears to have been adjourned to 26-3-1981.

12. On merits Shri Rajani Patel has raised seven contentions. Firstly, that there are no grounds whatsoever to indicate the involvement of the petitioner in the said case under section 120-B of the Indian Penal Code and section 5(1)(a) and 5(2) read with section 9 of the Official Secrets Act, 1923. Secondly, the F.I.R., the remand application and other documents relating to Pai and Sheth and the search list pertaining the searches in Bombay on 23rd March, 1981 and 24th March, 1981 fail to disclose even a prima facie case against the petitioner. Thirdly, although investigation in the case commenced on 6th March, 1981, till the date of this application and till the date the arguments were advanced, no incriminating material or evidence has been obtained against the petitioner. Fourthly, the petitioner is sought to be implicated in the case out of ulterior motives and/or sheer suspicion merely because he happens to be the Chairman of the I.C.B. Limited. Shri Rajani Patel has submitted that as Chairman of the I.C.B. Limited, the petitioner is not receiving any remuneration from I.C.B. Limited, except the charges which he is entitled to receive for attending the Board meetings. The petitioner is not even an Executive Chairman of I.C.B. Limited as such as is not receiving any remuneration whatsoever except the Director's charges. Fifthly, the petitioner has no connection whatsoever with the said Arora and other Government Officials arrested in connection with this case. Sixthly, neither the petitioner nor the said I.C.B. Limited, or the said Messrs Harshadray Pvt. Ltd. are at all concerned with the alleged leakage of the purported classified secret documents with the alleged receipt thereof by unauthorised persons. Seventhly, the documents seized from the office of I.C.B. Limited and Messrs Harshadray Pvt. Ltd. and from the residence of Sheth are totally innocuous and shows the baselessness of the case.

In considering the grounds, I am of the opinion that what the Court will have to look into is whether they throw light on the circumstances implicating the accused. How much light they throw is not material consideration at the stage of an inquiry under section 438 of the Code Criminal Procedure.

28. I now proceed to consider the grounds for levelling the accusation. The grounds set out in the said affidavit of the Superintendent of Police are: (1) In acquiring the secret documents from Government files and leaking them out to unauthorised persons, the petitioner and his organisation, namely, Industrial Consulting Bureau Ltd., are likely to be concerned; (2) In April 1979 Nanak Sheth instructed one of the persons questioned during investigation to procure the eight documents mentioned in the affidavit; (3) Thirty to forty copies of the relevant papers were made by industrial Consulting Bureau before the winter session of Parliament and were distributed to the members of Parliament; (4) Nanak Sheth, nephew of the petitioner and the Regional Manager of Industrial Consulting Bureau, could not and would not proceed to procure such documents unless the Industrial Consulting Bureau Ltd. was itself interested in securing them; (5) The money was from the funds of Industrial Consulting Bureau Ltd., of which the petitioner is a Chairman (6) Such money could not have been spent unless the Chairman himself was interested in procuring the documents. Undoubtedly, these disclosures were made to the police by persons who have already been arrested and as such the information cannot be used in evidence. But as already stated above, this is just a preliminary information obtained by the police and the investigation being still in progress, collection of evidence for proving the charge against the accused is yet to be done. No doubt, at this stage of the proceedings, there is no proof to show the involvement of the petitioner in the offence. But it is one thing to say that there is no proof and altogether a different thing that there is no data for involving the petitioner. Merely because the petitioner is the Chairman of the I.C.B. Limited, it cannot be said that he was not interested in procuring the documents. It is also stated in the said affidavit that collection of photo copies of the relevant files was in the knowledge of the petitioners before they were quated in the Lok Sabha on 23-12-1980, that a set of these classified/secret documents is also in possession/control of the petitioner. The reason why the police authorities feel that the petitioner is the kingpin behind the conspiracy is that the I.C.B. Limited was the only Institution and the petitioner was the only person who was affected and disappointed with the loss of the contract. The said affidavit also states that after the sub-committee was formed, the petitioner with other conspirators went to Kathmandu to seek help form an influential person who was at that time camping there. After 15 minutes, they were told that they were late but were asked to give a note on the subject which they gave at Delhi. It is also stated that the matter in the press was published and raised in Lok Sabha with active participation of Nanak Sheth, but in this work he had consent of the petitioner. It is also disclosed that whenever the person disclosing was getting information he was passing it on to the petitioner and Nanak Sheth, that the person had seen Shri Unnikrishnan speaking to the petitioner about putting the matter in a motion in Parliament. Now, this is an information which the police have, and this directly implicates the petitioner in the commission of the offence. As already stated above, it would be erroneous on the part of this Court to consider the evidentiary value of the information as that is not the scope of the inquiry under section 438 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973. It is not as if that the accusation is sought to be led against the petitioner without any grounds at all. There is this ground that the petitioner did go to Kathmandu and got the documents. Whether or not the prosecution is able to substantiate this is a matter which is altogether a different one and it is non-germane to the present proceedings. It is, therefore, difficult to accept the submission of Shri Rajani Patel that there are no grounds whatsoever to connect the petitioner with the offence in respect of which the F.I.R. has been filed.