CBI files charge sheet against IAS Rajendra Kumar

NEW DELHI: CBI has filed charge sheet against suspended IAS officer Rajendra Kumar, the then Principal Secretary to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, in connection with alleged graft case against him.

The 1989-batch IAS officer has been charged for alleged criminal conspiracy, cheating and forgery under Indian Penal Code besides provisions of Prevention of Corruption Act along with eight others and Endeavour Systems private Limited, CBI sources said today.

They said besides Kumar, Tarun Sharma, former Deputy Secretary in Kejriwal's office, Kumar's close aide Ashok Kumar and Managing Director of a PSU, R S Kaushik, co-owner of ESPL, Sandeep Kumar and Kaushik's predecessor G K Nanda, former Managing Director of Intelligent Communication Systems India Ltd (ICSIL), a Delhi government undertaking have also been named in the charge sheet.

Dinesh Kumar Gupta, Jaidev Rath and Mukesh Mehta have also been named in the charge sheet which has been filed in the Special CBI court recently.

It was alleged by CBI in the FIR 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. The FIR had also claimed that the officials had taken "undue benefit" of over Rs three crore while awarding the contract.

CBI had analysed voice recording which were found on laptops seized during its searches. The voice sample showed that Kumar was allegedly seeking undue favours for the ESPL.

The CBI had registered a case in December last year alleging that Kumar had abused his official position by "favouring a particular firm in the last few years in getting tenders of Delhi government departments".