ACB mulls action against CM's aide

The Anti-Corruption Branch is mulling legal action against Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s Principal Secretary Rajendra Kumar if he fails to turn up for questioning in the CNG fitness scam on Tuesday, sources said.  

Kumar, who has twice ignored investigators’ earlier requests to present himself for questioning, is said to be currently on Earned Leave but the ACB sources said on Monday that a strongly warded warning is being sent to the IAS officer not to skip Tuesday’s questioning session.

“If a person can be arrested despite being on leave, there is no reason why he can remain away from questioning on the claim that he is on leave,” said an investigator.

 The ACB wants to question Kumar in connection with the scam as he was serving in the Delhi administration when the  alleged wrongdoings in the case in which several suspects were arrested in 2013 for allegedly siphoning off crores of rupees while conducting fitness tests of CNG-run commercial vehicles.

In 2012, the ACB had registered a case in the alleged loss of Rs100 crore to the Delhi government in awarding the contract of operation and maintenance of inspection and certification of CNG vehicles.

Investigators said Kumar would be liable for legal action, as per law, if he continues to ignore the intimations sent to him for joining investigation.

“Such attempts amount to delaying  investigations in the matter,” said a source.
If Kumar refuses to make himself available for questioning, the Station House Officer of Anti-Corruption Branch can even initiate the procedure for Kumar’s arrest under Section 41 of the CrPC under which a police officer is satisfied that such arrest is necessary to prevent such a person for proper investigation of the offence,  to prevent such person from causing the evidence of the offence to disappear or tampering with such evidence in any manner.

The ACB filed an a chargesheet in the trial court over the scam on September 3.
A day after the filing of the chargesheet, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia shot off a letter to the vigilance department seeking a probe by the ACB into a possible role of the Lieutenant  Governor Najeeb Jung in denying permissions for a fair probe into the CNG fitness certificate scam.

The Arvind Kejriwal earlier refused to accept a Central government decision to junk a commission of inquiry (CoI) constituted by Kejriwal last month to probe the scam dating back to the Congress regime in 2012.

On Wednesday, the Delhi High Court is likely to hold a hearing on  responses by the Centre, Jung and the Delhi government on a plea filed by an accused in the scam seeking to suspend the CoI.

Kejriwal wanted the CoI to be headed by retired Delhi High Court judge, Justice S N Agarwal, but the Centre later dismissed its constitution and claimed that the AAP government did not have the power to order a judicial inquiry. Meanwhile, Justice Agarwal has been provided an office at ITO for his probe.