Kejriwal seeks ‘explanation’ from PMO over CBI raid

CBI abused its power in CM’s secretary

case: Court

Hours after a Delhi court ordered the CBI to returnthe documents it seized from Delhi

Secretariat in December, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal sought an “explanation” from the

Prime Minister’s Office over the CBI’s raid.

After CBI court order directing release of documents seized from Chief Minister’s Office

(CMO), PMO owes an explanation to the nation since the CBI reports to PM (Prime Minister

Narendra Modi,” he tweeted.

A trial court made scathing remarks about the Central Bureau of

Investigation’s conduct in probing an alleged corruption case against the

chief minister’s principal secretary, Rajendra Kumar, and others, saying the

agency seemed to be in “haste” and appeared to have “abused its powers”.

The court held that seizure of some documents by the CBI “is in utter

violation of clause 14.19 of the CBI manual” and “there was a deviation” in

following procedures for probing the case, adding that the agency did not

even carry out a preliminary enquiry before filing the FIR.

“The CBI cannot be clothed with divine powers to flout its own rules…in the

garb of the search warrant. “The investigating agency cannot seize

documents which are not in any way related to the case, and the

documents seized in this manner is clearly an abuse of power,” said special

CBI judge Ajay Kumar Jain, directing the agency to return the documents as

demanded by the Delhi government.

While discussing the facts of the case against Kumar and others, the court

said there are allegations that a public servant, while discharging his

official duty, has misused his powers but there is no direct allegation of any

pecuniary advantage and, therefore, some sort of preliminary inquiry is

required. “However, in the present case, the FIR is registered on oral

information. Thus, the proceedings initiated by the CBI appear to be in

haste,” said the court.

The judge also made it clear that CBI had, despite a month-long probe, so

far failed to show the seized documents were related to the allegations

against Kumar or the other accused while the Delhi government had shown

that the papers were in no way connected with the case. The court

described as “baseless” CBI’s contention that there could be forgery of the

documents if these were returned. “Even otherwise any kind of forgery in

these documents do not relate to the present investigation,” the judge said.

The judge made the remarks while allowing Delhi government’s plea

seeking return of the original CMO files seized by the CBI. The government

said these were “indiscriminately” seized and were “completely unrelated”

to the probe. These documents included the CM’s visitors directory, a

cabinet note of June last year and some other diaries. The court agreed

with the government’s submissions and said these documents were

completely “unrelated” to the case and the agency had failed to give any

explanation for retaining these documents.

Delhi’s Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia called the CBI raid of December 16

“politically motivated” and sought an apology from the prime minister for it, saying it was

directed at Kejriwal’s office.

“Modi should now appologise” and admit the raid was wrong, Sisodia said.

He said the court had categorically observed that it was improper to seize files not related to

Rajendra Kumar and also the “in” and “out” register of the chief minister’s office.

Delhi’s ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) said the court order exposed Modi government’s

blatant misuse of the CBI as Kejriwal was the target of the raid, not his principal secretary.

AAP Delhi unit convenor Dilip Pandey said the raid was a ploy to unsettle the AAP

government.

“Rattled by humiliating loss in Bihar elections, the Narendra Modi government unleashed the

CBI to terrorize the AAP government in Delhi,” he said.