If you have been following social network I am sure you must have come across a plethora of posts where either Arvind Kejriwal is slamming the Modi Government about the alleged raid of the Chief Minister’s office or BJP members snubbing Kejriwal’s comments or even CBI officials defending their move as legal.
According to the CBI, they raided the premises of IAS officer, Rajendra Kumar, who is principle secretary to Delhi Chief Minister, Arvinbd Kejriwal, is accused of helping a private firm in getting contracts. The CBI has in fact registered a corruption case against Kumar on the basis of allegations that he abused his position to favour private firm, Endeavour System between 2007-2014. According to CBI they have recovered currency worth Rs 3 lakh and cash worth Rs 2.4 lakh was found during a raid.
While the Aam Admi Party leader and Delhi Chief Minister, Arvind Kejriwal claims that this raid was being used to intimidate him and his Government. He even went to the extent of tweeting, “Modi is a coward and psychopath.” It is needless to mention that a furious BJP retaliated today and lashed out at Kejriwal for his “disgraceful” remarks against the Prime Minister.
Though these allegations and counter allegations would continue, the question is the CBI within the law in going ahead with the raid.
The Section 6A of the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act (DSPEA) brought in by the last NDA government in 2003 necessitated a Government sanction before raiding the office of any bureaucrat above the Joint Secretary level. However a 5-judge bench of the Supreme Court struck it down in May 2014 citing that it obstructs tracking down corrupt officials. The agency now does not require any sanction. However what it needs is a court permission and they already had it, a search warrant from a local court after filing a FIR.
The idea is to discourage searches unless unavoidable. In this case however since the case is a 7-year old one pertaining to discrepancies in various departments of the Delhi Government, guess the CBI is well within its rights to demand a search to speed up the investigation process. The CBI in this was working on the basis of a complaint from Ashish Joshi who was removed as member secretary of the Delhi Dialogue Commission following disagreements with AAP leader Ashish Khetan.
Though the CBI does not act on personal and individual complaints, the fact that they spent time in validating the authenticity of the complaint and then decided to take action surely underlines the fact that perhaps there is more than what Mr Kejriwal will have us believe.
Furthermore, the The CBI is not duty-bound to inform the Chief Minister or any other Government representative while taking action against potential misconduct of any bureaucrat.
So while BJP and AAp can continue their political mud-slinging and name calling, one fact is clear that there is nothing illegal in CBI’s conduct.
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