Principal secretary at CBI headquarters for questioning

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal’s principal secretary Rajendra Kumar was questioned again by the CBI on Wednesday in connection with a corruption case.

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal’s principal secretary Rajendra Kumar was questioned again by the CBI on Wednesday in connection with a corruption case. The IAS officer arrived at the CBI building at around 9.40 am for the second round of examination in connection with the case of alleged corruption registered against him and six others on December 14.

CBI carried out searches at 14 places connected with Kumar in the national capital, including his residence, and various locations in Uttar Pradesh. The agency has claimed to have recovered about Rs 16 lakh, including Rs 2.4 lakh in cash, foreign currency of the value of Rs 3 lakh from the residence of Kumar. (REUTERS)

Kumar, a 1989-batch IAS officer of AGMUT cadre, was questioned by the CBI for about seven hours late last night after the probe agency sleuths raided his Delhi secretariat office, triggering a political storm between Delhi government and the Centre.

The CBI said that it has registered a case against Kumar and others on allegations against the officer that he abused his official position by “favouring a particular firm in the last few years in getting tenders from Delhi government departments”. Kumar has been booked under 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 in five contracts worth Rs 9.5 crore during 2007-14.

CBI carried out searches at 14 places connected with Kumar in the national capital, including his residence, and various locations in Uttar Pradesh. The agency has claimed to have recovered about Rs 16 lakh, including Rs 2.4 lakh in cash, foreign currency of the value of Rs 3 lakh from the residence of Kumar.

“The allegations against Kumar were raised by Ashish Joshi, former Member Secretary, Delhi Dialogue Commission,” the CBI said. As opposition attacked the Centre over the CBI action, the agency went on an overdrive to convey that the raids were being undertaken after following a due a process of law which included getting a search warrant from the competent court.

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal had yesterday called Prime Minister Narendra Modi a “psychopath” and “coward” after the raids and targeted finance minister Arun Jaitley over alleged corruption in Delhi’s cricket body under his watch.