Court sends Arvind Kejriwal's Principal Secy, 4 others to 5-day CBI custody

New Delhi: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's Principal Secretary Rajender Kumar and four others, arrested in an alleged corruption case, were on Tuesday remanded to five days CBI custody by a special court which was told by the agency that the IAS officer was "intimidating" witnesses.

Special CBI Judge Arvind Kumar sent Kumar, Deputy Secretary in Kejriwal's office Tarun Sharma, Kumar's close aide Ashok Kumar and owners of a private firm, Sandeep Kumar and Dinesh Gupta, to CBI custody.

During the hearing, CBI sought 10 days custodial interrogation of the accused, claiming that Rajender Kumar was an influential person and it was impossible to conduct a fair probe in the matter without arresting him as he was intimidating witnesses.

"He is an influential and highly placed bureaucrat. We cannot have a fair investigation without arresting him as he was intimidating witnesses," the CBI prosecutor told the court. At this juncture, the judge asked "is there any incident of intimidating witnesses?"

Responding to the query, the agency officer said "yes, we have recorded the statements of such witnesses."

The agency further alleged that there was a nexus among the arrested accused and Kumar was well-acquainted with all of them and that they had conspired in award of contract to Endeavour Systems Pvt Ltd.

Observing that the money trail has to be ascertained, it said the agency had the audio tapes of conversations between Kumar and other accused persons.

Opposing the application for CBI remand, senior advocate Mohit Mathur, who appeared for Kumar, said no ground has been mentioned in the agency's plea which reflects that CBI remand was required.

He said there was no single paper on record which suggested that his client had any relation with other arrested accused.

Mathur also argued that there was no allegation against Kumar that he has caused any wrongful loss to anybody.

Senior advocate Ramesh Gupta, who appeared for Sharma, said his client had cooperated in the probe and there was no ground to arrest him.

Similarly, the other three accused said they had also participated in the investigation and hence there was no need to arrest them.