NEW DELHI: An employee of the Civil Aviation Ministry was today picked up by the Crime Branch for questioning in the corporate espionage case.
Sources said a man posted as executive personal secretary (EPS) to a Joint Secretary level officer at Rajiv Gandhi Bhavan was picked up by Crime Branch sleuths this morning for questioning, which continued till late evening.
Rajiv Gandhi Bhavan houses Civil Aviation Ministry, besides, the headquarters of Airports Authority of India. The staffer was recently posted in the Civil Aviation Ministry from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).
Police sources said that the name of this staffer cropped up during the questioning of those arrested in the case so far following which he was detained for questioning.
So far 16 people have been arrested in this case which continues to throw up new names everyday. Police have registered two separate FIRs in this case so far. While 13 people have been arrested in the first FIR, three have been held in the second case.
Yesterday, police had arrested two officials of the Environment Ministry and UPSC. Jitender Nagpal (40), PS to Joint Secretary in Forest and Environment ministry and Vipan Kumar (42), PA to a UPSC member were arrested.
The two were arrested under the second FIR in which five people were named earlier including Lokesh Sharma, an energy consultant of Noida-based Infraline consultancy firm who was apprehended on Monday by the Crime Branch busting the second module in the corporate espionage case.
Cracking down on a major case of corporate espionage, Delhi Police had on February 19 arrested two junior Oil Ministry officials and three other middlemen for allegedly leaking classified government documents to energy companies.
On February 20, two energy consultants Santanu Saikia andPrayas Jain and five senior executives from top energy firms - Shailesh Saxena from RIL, Vinay Kumar from Essar, KK Naik from Cairns, Subhash Chandra from Jubilant Energy and Rishi Anand from ADAG Reliance - were arrested.
Virendra Kumar, a casual worker in the Defence Ministry, was arrested on February 24 for allegedly providing forged identity card to a key accused in the first FIR in which documents were leaked from the Petroleum Ministry.