The greed to make huge profits without investing much drove corporate lobbyists and energy consultancy firms into buying highly classified documents through less educated low-level employees of the petroleum ministry.
Delhi police sources said Asharam, a multi-tasking employee in the Petroleum Minister’s office, and his two sons Lalta and Rakesh would get about Rs 20,000 to Rs 30,000 per set of top-secret documents stolen from Shastri Bhawan offices of directors and top bureaucrats. The documents were bought by corporate lobbyists and energy analysts
Police have come across instances where the consultancy firms used these documents to convert them into policy papers on different aspects of energy sector and sold them off to clients here and abroad, especially in Gulf countries and Malayisia, for nothing less than Rs 5 lakh.
Though the probe is at a preliminary stage, the initial interrogation of the five persons arrested revealed that some of them have taken the bribe even through banking channels, said police sources.
A senior police officer said it would not be out of place to state that on some occasions, the cabinet papers and other classified official documents of the ministry would reach to corporates before it landed in the Prime Minister’s office.
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