India extends oil ministry leaks probe to defence ministry

New Delhi

THE Indian government has widened an investigation into leaks of confidential documents from its oil ministry to include the defence ministry, raising fears that other secrets vital to national security may have fallen into the wrong hands.

The scandal has engulfed the oil ministry since the arrest two weeks ago of low-level staff suspected of stealing secret documents and selling them to journalists who styled themselves as high-profile industry consultants.

So far, investigators have focused on how that information was, in turn, used by some of India's biggest oil companies to pre-empt unfavoura…