Delhi government cries vendetta as CBI arrests principal secy to Arvind Kejriwal

The national capital is set to witness yet another political storm as the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Monday arrested Rajendra Kumar, principal secretary to Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal in an alleged corruption case.

The agency also arrested four others in the same case and said that their probe had established that there was quid pro quo evidence against Kumar, whom the officials termed as the 'kingpin' of the 'scam'.

Sources told dna that Kumar and the four, including Tarun Sharma, deputy secretary to Kejriwal, were allegedly involved in multiple instances of financial irregularities, favouritism and abuse of authority in a 'scam' that spanned for almost 10 years and was worth Rs 50 crore. This is five times larger than the one mentioned in the original complaint against the senior bureaucrat.

CBI had booked Kumar 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) for allegedly favouring a private company in five contracts worth Rs 9.5 crore during 2007-14. However, the probe, sources said, revealed that the alleged scam started in 2006, with Kumar setting up a front company named Endeavour Systems Pvt Ltd, along with his schoolmate Ashok Kumar, who was also arrested.

The company was supposed to provide IT, software and hardware solutions and work in tandem with public sector undertakings (PSUs) empanelled with the Delhi government. The CBI claimed that Kumar, during his stint in various departments, awarded contracts to PSUs which were either headed by him or his associates.

The two other arrested are Sandeep Kumar and Dinesh Gupta, both of whom are believed to be close to the principal secretary. The duo were nominated as directors of Endeavour Systems, which would over the years receive contracts through ICSIL (Intelligent Communication Systems India Ltd), which was empanelled with the Delhi government in March 2007.

"In the same year, Kumar allegedly hired Sandeep Kumar as a consultant for the Delhi government, without following any process and even cancelled advertisements showing that the government was interested in hiring," said a CBI source. This, according to the source, took place when Rajendra Kumar was serving as CMD in Delhi Transco Ltd.

Kumar allegedly awarded contracts to the accused companies without inviting tenders. "And in cases where tenders were awarded, they were done after the accused manipulated the pre-qualification criteria," said a CBI official.

According to the CBI, Rajendra Kumar, on the advice of Sandeep, allegedly shelved the CDAT project and started a new Management Information System (MIS), on which the duo allegedly spent Rs 46 lakh without giving reasons why it was adopted. According to sources, maintenance of these projects were given to ICSIL without following procedures. The CBI had also registered cases against AK Duggal and GK Nanda – both former directors of (ICSIL) – and RS Kaushik, MD, ICSIL.

"A bigger project was planned in August 2009. The accused then wanted to go to a bigger IT solutions platform by moving from MIS to SAP (Systems Application and Products). The total worth of the project was around Rs 21 crore," sources told dna.

The contract was awarded to Seal Infotech, and, allegedly, as a quid pro quo, bribes to the tune of Rs 1.7 crore were paid by Seal to Endeavour, sources added.

Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia called the arrest a conspiracy by the Centre to destabilise the AAP government, ahead of the upcoming Assembly polls.

"Yesterday, there was a successful AAP rally in Punjab. The situation in Goa is also set. Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led central government is so scared that they are now hatching conspiracies to paralyse the chief minister's office," he said.

"We received an order earlier today in which nine officers of the Delhi government were transferred. In two days, eleven officers have been transferred," he alleged, adding the Delhi government can also work with peons and the Modi government is taking revenge of the election defeat from the people of Delhi.

When past haunts

Kumar's office in Delhi secretariat was raided on December 15 last year by the CBI. Soon after, Kejriwal claimed that his office too was raided. He said it was the fallout of a probe he had ordered against Union finance minister Arun Jaitley on corruption charges in the Delhi and District Cricket Association, which Jaitley once headed. The CBI had denied this charge.