CBI arrest Kejriwal’s key aide Rajendra Kumar

The Central Bureau of Investigation on Monday arrested five persons, including Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s Principal Secretary Rajendra Kumar, in the ongoing investigation of a case.

The arrested accused persons will be produced on Tuesday in the Designated Court at Delhi, a CBI press release said. The allegations relate to bribery and abuse of official position by Kumar to favour a Delhi-based private company in award of contracts of the Delhi government. The contracts are reported to be above Rs 50 crore.

Searches were conducted on December 15, 2015, at 14 places in Delhi and UP at the official and residential premises of accused persons which led to recovery of a large number of incriminating documents including cash of around Rs 13 lakh, said the CBI release. It may be recalled that at that time the searches had infuriated Kejriwal to such an extent that he called Prime Minister Narendra Modi a “psychopath” and “coward.”

Kumar, a 1989 IAS officer of the UT cadre, was called along with Tarun Sharma, a Deputy Secretary in Kejriwal’s office, besides three other private persons for questioning at the CBI headquarters this morning, PTI reported. “After being questioned for half a day, the CBI decided to place the two officers under arrest along with a close aide of Kumar, Ashok Kumar and owners of a private firm Sandeep Kumar and Dinesh Gupta.”

The CBI has pressed charges under Sections 120-B of the IPC (criminal conspiracy), and 13(2), 13(1)(d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act (Criminal conspiracy, criminal misconduct, etc.) for allegedly favouring Endeavour Systems Pvt. Ltd. in bagging five contracts.

The case was registered on a complaint from former Delhi Dialogue Commission (DDC) member Ashish Joshi to the Delhi government’s Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB) earlier last year. The complaint was forwarded to CBI in July last following which the agency registered an FIR after a five-month probe.