There is a sense of dj vu about the way the Narendra Modi government has tried to cover itself with a bit of glory after claiming to have busted a corporate espionage racket in the petroleum ministry this week, reports The Telegraph.

The government claims the racket had festered and grown over years. That has always been something of an open secret within journalistic circles and the chatter in Delhi Press Club has been about how Santanu Saikia, a former mainstream journalist who now runs an energy website called Indian Petro.com, found himself embroiled in the controversy.

Saikia has been here before: several years ago, he was battling a charge of a violation of the Official Secrets Act after filing a report based on "top secret" documents.

In his defence at that time, Saikia had said the OSA was a relic from the British past that was supposed to target enemies of the state. To use the provisions of the legislation against a journalist was blatantly high-handed and a gross attempt to muzzle a scribe who would naturally use any means at his command to gather information. Saikia was acquitted in that case.

On Friday, Saikia was trotting out the same argument to blunt the charges that have been levelled against him. Delhi police have claimed that he had a trove of official documents in his possession and that, by itself, seemed to suggest that he was passing on information to certain corporate houses.

Read the full report here