Kejriwal's former Principal Secy seeks voluntary retirement

Rajendra Kumar has blamed the CBI in his VRS letter for humiliating him on various occasions.

New Delhi, Jan 5: Seeking voluntary retirement a month after being charge sheeted by CBI in an alleged graft case, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's former Principal Secretary Rajendra Kumar has alleged that he was repeatedly told by the interrogators to implicate the CM.

In his letter to Delhi Chief Secretary, Kumar, a 1989 batch IAS officer, said he has never earlier experienced the kind of such utter "disregard" for system, process, protocol, transparency, decency which he had experienced first-hand in his own case. Kumar, referring to the CBI probe in the graft case against him, alleged, "I was repeatedly told that I would be let free if I implicate Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal" and added that this "may be this was the reason for the agency to go to such extraordinary length".

"Not only this the CBI, just to force people to implicate me and the Chief Minister, has beaten up dozens of people and some of them sustained permanent major injuries," Kumar alleged. The officer, who was principal secretary to the Chief Minister at the time of his arrest in July last year and subsequently suspended, claimed his troubles started soon after he was invited by Kejriwal to work with him in December 2013.

Reacting to the development, Kejriwal attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying "why the PM is so scared of us". "CBI raids my office, pressurises officer to implicate me. CBI raids Satyendar Jains office. Why are u so so scared of us Modi Ji? Chill (sic)," Kejriwal alleged in a tweet. CBI had last month filed a charge sheet against Kumar 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.

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.

PTI