Delhi govt suspends principal secretary Rajendra Kumar

The Delhi government on Wednesday suspended Principal Secretary Rajendra Kumar, according to a tweet posted by ANI.

Delhi Govt suspends Delhi principal Secy. According to rules, an officer is deemed suspended if he is under custody for more than 48 hours.

— ANI (@ANI_news) July 6, 2016

The suspension follows after Kumar along with four others were sent to five-days custody by a special CBI court on Tuesday, in connection with an alleged corruption case. The tweet added that an officer is considered to be suspended if he/she is under custody for more than 48 hours.

Rajendra Kumar. PTI

However, the CBI had sought a ten-day custody of Kumar to complete investigations. Rajendra Kumar was arrested on Monday by the CBI in connection with an alleged corruption scandal. The agency had conducted a raid on Kumar’s office on 15 December, 2015 at the Delhi secretariat and seized documents and alleged that they prima facie reflected a criminal conspiracy and abuse of official position.

The Delhi BJP on Tuesday reacted to Rajendra Kumar's arrest by attacking the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government, and accusing it of protecting "corrupt" officials, legislators and ministers of the ruling party.

"Delhi government is sheltering such officers and employees who are corrupt and whose track record is poor, legislators who are involved in corruption and ministers who have FIRs against them," Delhi BJP president Satish Upadhyay said.

Rajendra Kumar, who is the principal secretary of Arvind Kejriwal, was arrested on Monday by CBI for allegedly favouring a private firm in award of Delhi government contracts.

The case against Rajendra Kumar is not new, writes Debobrat Ghose for Firstpost. It began way back in 2015, when for the first time another bureaucrat in the Delhi government Ashish Joshi acted as a whistleblower and demanded a probe against Kumar for the first time by moving Delhi’s Anti Corruption Branch (ACB). Joshi alleged that Rajendra Kumar had misused his power and position in granting favours to a private company.

With inputs from PTI