Graft case: Court seeks CBI's reply on accused' bail plea

New Delhi: A special court on Monday sought CBI's reply on the bail plea of an accused, arrested in a corruption case involving Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's former Principal Secretary Rajendra Kumar.

Special CBI Judge Arvind Kumar issued notice to the probe agency and fixed the matter for hearing on July 27 on the bail application of owner of a private firm, Endeavour Systems Pvt Ltd (ESPL), Dinesh Kumar Gupta.

The court, which was scheduled to pronounce the order on Kumar's bail plea today, has now put up matter for tomorrow.

Earlier, the court had ordered defreezing of Gupta's bank account. He had told the court he and his family were going through a tough time due to the freezing of the accounts.

Besides Kumar and Gupta, three other accused -- Tarun Sharma, former Deputy Secretary in Kejriwal's office, Kumar's close aide Ashok Kumar and Managing Director of a PSU, R S Kaushik -- have also moved the court seeking bail in the case.

Besides the five accused, CBI had also arrested the co owner of ESPL, Sandeep Kumar and Kaushik's predecessor G K Nanda, former Managing Director of Intelligent Communication Systems India Ltd (ICSIL), a Delhi government undertaking.

According to CBI, the five accused were allegedly showing undue favours to private firm ESPL which the agency alleged was floated by Kumar for 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".

The accused have been 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 the 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 documents sought by Delhi government seized during December 15, 2015 search of Kejriwal's office.

Arrest of top state government official had triggered a political storm with the Delhi government accusing Centre of indulging in "political vendetta" and "paralysing" governance.