The CBI on Monday arrested Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s Principal Secretary Rajendra Kumar and four others in a ten-year-old case for allegedly showing undue favours to a private company in award of Government contracts worth over Rs 50 crore.
Kumar, a 1989-batch 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 on Monday. After grilling them for half a day, the CBI decided to arrest the two officers along with Kumar’s close aide Ashok Kumar, and owners of a private firm Sandeep Kumar and Dinesh Gupta.
“The CBI 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,” an agency spokesperson said.
“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,” the official added.
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”.
Following the registration of the case, the agency had also conducted searches on December 15 last year at 14 places in Delhi and Uttar Pradesh on the official and residential premises of the accused persons which led to recovery of a large number of incriminating documents, including cash of around Rs 13 lakh.
The agency has booked him under Sections 120-B of the IPC (criminal conspiracy), and 13(2), 13(1)(d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act (Criminal conspiracy and criminal misconduct) for allegedly favouring a private company — Endeavour Systems Pvt. ltd. — in bagging five contracts.
The accused had been accused of entering into a criminal conspiracy and caused a loss of Rs 12 crore to the Delhi Government in award of contracts between 2007 and 2015. The CBI claimed that the officials had taken “undue benefit” of over Rs 3 crore while awarding the contract.
All the arrested persons will be produced before court on Tuesday and the agency is likely to seek their remand.
The case was registered on a complaint by former Delhi Dialogue Commission (DDC) member Ashish Joshi to the Delhi Government’s Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB) in 2015. The complaint was forwarded to CBI in July, 2015 following which the agency registered an FIR after a five-month probe.
According to the CBI FIR, the five contracts were allegedly awarded to Endeavour Systems when Kumar was holding various posts in the Delhi Government and include a project for the development of a comprehensive management system to Endeavour Systems without any tendering process.
The CBI alleged that as Secretary, Health, in the Delhi Government, Kumar facilitated the award of a manpower project to the firm without inviting tenders. As commissioner, trade and taxes, Kumar helped the firm bag a contract for development of software applications for his department, the agency has alleged in its FIR.
He was also accused of committing irregularities in award of contract for a facility management system for the trade and taxes department. As secretary to the Chief Minister, he allegedly facilitated the award of Delhi Jal Board contract for enterprise resource planning (ERP) to the firm.