CBI Conducted December 15 Raid Under Undue Pressure, Says Delhi Government

Hours after a Delhi court ordered the CBI to return the documents it seized from Delhi Secretariat in December, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday sought an “explanation” from the Prime Minister’s Office over the CBI’s raid.

The CBI had moved the high court, saying the special court failed to appreciate that the Delhi government has already obtained attested photocopies of the documents seized and thus the order of returning the documents is “wholly misconceived”.

On December 15, 2015, the CBI sleuths raided Delhi Chief Minister’s office in an alleged corruption cases against his Principal Secretary Rajinder Kumar. “If CBI was to follow the rules, law and laid down statutory procedures and guidelines, then there was absolutely no need to raid at the said premises and much less seize indiscriminately the documents unrelated to the case”, the 38- page reply, filed through Delhi government’s senior standing counsel Rahul Mehra and standing counsel Richa Kapoor, said. Petitioner CBI will file their response by January 23. Justice Teji refrained from passing any interim order on the agency’s plea after Delhi government argued it should be heard before the court passed any directions.

Kejriwal had attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently and demanded his resignation over what he termed was a “flop raid” by the CBI at the Delhi secretariat to “protect” finance minister Arun Jaitley in the alleged DDCA scam. “Today’s court order has completely exposed Modi government’s blatant misuse of the CBI”. It is expected that it will present its case in a detailed manner.

The trial court’s order came on Wednesday. “I will decide it finally”, said Justice Teji, after the CBI counsel said that the documents seized were “very relevant” to the investigation. “These documents are crucial and vital to prove the unholy nexus between the accused persons and throw light on the allegation of criminal conspiracy and criminal misconduct and also would have prejudiced the larger interest of the justice and fair investigation”. Quoting the CBI manual, the judge had pointed out there should not be any indiscriminate seizure of documents in any case and investigating officer should seize and requisition the record only if these are essential for investigation. The agency has been directed to file its response by Saturday.

The Judge had said there appears a deviation in the present case as CBI without conducting preliminary inquiry straight away registered the regular case on oral information. It had registered a corruption case against Kumar and others on the allegations that he had abused his official position by “favouring a particular firm in the last few years in getting tenders from Delhi government department”.