Rajendra Kumar was questioned by the CBI for about 7 hours

New Delhi, Dec 16: Rajendra Kumar was questioned by the CBI for about seven hours 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.

Kejriwal had on Tuesday 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.

BJP demanded that Kejriwal must apologise for his remarks against Modi.

PTI