In the chargesheet filed in the court of Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Kamini Lau, CBI alleged that the two accused - S K Arora and Sanjeev Kumar - were trying to obtain information for a detective agency, about a woman who had filed a complaint of torture and illegal confinement against Raha.

The court has taken cognizance of the chargesheet and has taken the accused, who were on bail, into custody. The case is listed for charge on April 4.

The court has also directed CBI to file a report on whether any registration or licenses are required to run a private detective agency, and whether the agency in question was registered and whether the accused had a valid license.

The accused have also submitted bail pleas in the case, which will come up on March 30.

On May 19 2005, the two accused contacted the complainant M K Barman, Deputy General Manager, Steel Authority of India Ltd, to get information about his tenant, Sujaya Naha, allegedly because she was "blackmailing the chairman of a company," CBI said.

On being asked for identity cards, Arora produced a brown coloured CBI diary, but could not show any official letter, the chargesheet said.

Barman then got suspicious, and contacted CBI to verify the identity of the two men. The agency immediately dispatched four officials to Barman's office and asked for identification papers of the accused, it said.

On being challenged by the CBI, the two men said that they were from the Home Ministry, but again could not produce identity proof, the chargesheet said.

CBI investigations later revealed that the two were employees of an East Delhi private detective agency, headed by one R N Kaul.

In his statement recorded under section 161 of the Criminal Procedure Code, Kaul admitted to having sent the two men, but denied having told them to impersonate CBI personnel, the chargesheet said.

Kaul also said the two were sent subsequent to a "formal conversation" with Subir Raha, who told him about a 'false' complaint lodged by the woman against Raha with the Connaught Place police, it said.

The woman, a freelance journalist, apparently contacted Raha in 2002 to obtain advertisements.

When the contract for advertisements was not renewed, a dispute arose between Raha and the woman, after which she got herself admitted to a hospital and filed a case of illegal confinement and torture against the CMD, Kaul in his statement reported Raha as having said in their conversation, according to the chargesheet.

That complaint, filed in December 2004, is presently with the crime branch.