CM Arvind Kejriwal’s principal secretary Rajendra Kumar arrested by CBI in corruption case
NEW DELHI: CM Arvind Kejriwal’s principal secretary Rajendra Kumar was arrested by the CBI on Monday along with four others in a corruption case to the tune of Rs 50 crore.
Addressing the press in the national capital, CBI Spokesperson, RK Gowda said, “Allegations related to bribery and abuse of position is against them. Further probe is underway.”
The other four arrested are Tarun Sharma, Sandeep Kumar, Dinesh Gupta and Ashok Kumar. All five accused including Kumar will be produced in Delhi’s Patiala House court tomorrow. Kumar allegedly promoted a company, Endeavour System Pvt Ltd from 2007, by allegedly misusing his official position and facilitated tenders worth Rs 9.5 crore to the company.
Rajendra Kumar, who was arrested in a corruption case, was appointed Principal Secretary in February 2015, when the Arvind Kejriwal government came to powerReacting to the developments, Delhi Deputy CM Manish Sisodia said, “Delhi CM’s principal secretary arrested, deputy secretary arrested and additional secretary transferred – This is all done to paralyse the CM’s office.”
“Central government has now stooped very low by doing this. This is all a conspiracy,” he added.On December 15 last year, CBI had raided the office of Kumar.
They had registered the case against Kumar and others on the allegations against the officer that he had abused his official position by favouring the firm in the last few years in getting tenders from Delhi government departments.
Kumar has been booked under Section 120-B of IPC (criminal conspiracy), and under the provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act for allegedly favouring the company in five contracts worth Rs 9.5 crore during 2007-14.
According to the CBI -in April this year, “Rajender Kumar had played an active role in the process of promising and facilitating award of tender to a pre determined party i.e., M/s Endeavour Systems Pvt Ltd due to extraneous considerations and devoid of public interest which shows clear element of abuse of official position and criminal conspiracy among the accused persons including the Directors of the present applicant company
The case was registered based on a complaint from former Delhi Dialogue Commission (DDC) member Ashish Joshi to the Delhi Police Anti-Corruption bureau (ACB).
The complaint was forwarded to CBI in July following which the agency registered an FIR after a five-month-long probe, the CBI said.Kumar is a 1989 batch IAS officer. He was also secretary to Kejriwal during his previous stint as Delhi CM.
The raid on Kumar by the CBI had led to a war of words between the Delhi government and the Centre last year. Kejriwal had taken to Twitter and had said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi ‘could not handle him politically’ and that’s why he was resorting to ‘cowardice’.
(With Agency inputs)
