Delhi CM's ex-Principal Secretary, 6 others sent to judicial custody till July 27

New Delhi: Delhi Chief Minister's former Principal Secretary Rajendra Kumar and six others, arrested in an alleged corruption case, were on Thursday sent to judicial custody till July 27 by a special court after CBI submitted that they were not required for further investigation.

Kumar also moved a bail application before court, saying he is no more required for the investigation. The court sought reply from probe agency on his plea and fixed it for hearing on July 21.

Special CBI Judge Arvind Kumar sent Kumar, a 1989 batch IAS officer of UT cadre, former Deputy Secretary in Kejriwal's office Tarun Sharma, Kumar's close aide Ashok Kumar and owners of a private firm, Sandeep Kumar and Dinesh Kumar Gupta, to the jail after they were produced from CBI custody.

The court also sent R S Kaushik and his predecessor G K Nanda, present and the former Managing Directors of a PSU respectively, to judicial custody till July 27. While producing them, the CBI told the court that their custodial interrogation was over and they be sent to the judicial custody.

After CBI submitted that the accused were not required for custodial interrogation, senior advocate Mohit Mathur, who appeared for Kumar, moved the bail plea on his behalf. The CBI told the court that it needed time to reply to the plea, after which the court put up the matter for July 21.

According to CBI, the five accused were allegedly showing undue favours to Endeavour Systems Pvt Ltd (ESPL), a private firm which the agency alleged was floated by Kumar, in the award of government contracts worth over Rs 50 crore.

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".

Kaushik and Nanda, present and former Managing Directors of Intelligent Communication Systems India Ltd (ICSIL), a Delhi government undertaking and a joint venture of Telecommunication Consultants India Ltd and Delhi State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation, were arrested as they were allegedly evasive during questioning.

The accused were charged under section 120-B of IPC (criminal conspiracy) and provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act relating to criminal misconduct for allegedly favouring ESPL in bagging of five contracts. CBI has alleged that the accused persons had entered into a criminal conspiracy and caused a loss of Rs 12 crore to Delhi government in award of contracts between 2007 and 2015, and claimed that the officials had taken "undue benefit" of over Rs three crore while awarding the contracts.

This is the same case in which the agency had come under scathing criticism from court which had directed it to return the documents sought by the Delhi government seized during December 15, 2015 search of Kejriwal's office. The arrest of the top state government official had triggered a political storm with the Delhi government accusing the Centre of indulging in "political vendetta" and "paralysing" governance.