The former Principal Secretary to Arvind Kejriwal, Rajendra Kumar and six others were sent to one-day judicial custody by a Delhi court on Sunday in an alleged case of corruption.
Metropolitan Magistrate Shunali Gupta passed the order in which it also sent RS Kaushik and his predecessor GK Nanda, present and former Managing Directors of a PSU respectively, to judicial custoday till Monday, asking all the seven accused to be produced before the special CBI court on Monday, which will consider the agency’s plea for their police remand.
Kumar, a 1989-batch IAS officer from the UT cadre, Deputy Secretary in Kejriwal’s office Tarun Sharma, Kumar’s close aide Ashok Kumar and owners of a private firm, Sandeep Kumar and Dinesh Kumar Gupta, arrested in the case, were remanded in JC till Monday.
“Earlier, the police custody order for five accused was passed by the designated CBI court. The application for the extension of their police custody and another application for the police custody of two accused who were arrested on Saturday will be considered the designated court itself.
“Meanwhile, all the seven accused be sent to one-day judicial custody,” the court said. CBI has alleged in court that Kumar, an “influential” officer, was intimidating witnesses.
According to CBI, the five accused arrested earlier were showing undue favours to Endeavour Systems Pvt ltd (ESPl), a private firm allegedly floated by Kumar, in award of Government contracts worth over Rs 50 crore.
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”.