New Delhi: The CBI on Monday arrested Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s Principal Secretary Rajendra Kumar and four others in connection with a case of showing undue favours to a private company in award of government contracts worth over Rs 50 crore.
Kumar, a 1989 IAS officer of 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.
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 had registered a case against Kumar and others in December last year alleging that the officer had abused his official position by “favouring a particular firm in the last few years in getting tenders of Delhi government departments”.
The charges pressed by the CBI are under sections 120-B of IPC (criminal conspiracy), and 13(2), 13(1)(d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act (Criminal conspiracy, criminal misconduct etc) for allegedly favouring a private company –Endeavour Systems Pvt. Ltd.– in bagging five contracts.
The CBI alleged that the accused persons had entered into a criminal conspiracy and caused a loss of Rs 12 crore to the Delhi Government in award of contracts between 2007 and 2015, and claimed that the officials had taken “undue benefit” of over Rs three crore while awarding the contract.
“The CBI has today arrested five persons including a senior civil servant, Government of Delhi, another official of Delhi government, two directors of a Delhi-based private company and a private person.
“The allegations relate to bribery and abuse of official position by the said senior civil servant and others to favour a Delhi based private company in award of contracts of Delhi government,” CBI’s Chief Press Information officer R K Gaur said, adding the arrested accused persons will be produced before court on Tuesday. This is the same case in which CBI had come under scathing criticism from court which directed it to return documents sought by the Delhi government seized during December 15, 2015 raids on Kejriwal’s office. (PTI)
