Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's Principal Secretary Rajinder Kumar arrested by CBI

NEW DELHI: The Central Bureau of Investigation ( 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 on Monday. After a daylong questioning, the agency 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 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 RK Gaur said, adding the arrested accused persons will be produced before court tomorrow.

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". CBI said four contracts were given to Endeavour Systems Pvt. Ltd (ESPL), the private company.

This includes projects for Delhi Transport limited when Rajender Kumar was CMD DTL, Health department when Kumar was Health Secretary, VAT department when Kumar was commissioner of trade and taxes and Delhi Jal Board when he was secretary urban development.

The charges levelled 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).

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 3 crore while awarding the contract.