The Delhi High Court on Monday (25 January 2016) asked the CBI to furnish photocopies of documents seized by it during a raid at the office of Rajendra Kumar, principal secretary to Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.
Justice P.S. Teji asked the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to supply the copies of documents within two days, while posting the matter for January 29.
The court said the documents were required as it wanted to examine their relevancy to establish whether the original papers can be retained by the CBI or not.
The court said the CBI may keep the original documents with it so that the court can look into it at any point during the arguments.
The court was hearing a plea of the CBI challenging a trial court order directing the probe agency to release the documents seized during the raid on December 15, 2015.
The Aam Aadmi Party government had told the court that the CBI was trying to give a “political colour” to the raid and that the agency acted under “political pressure” to indiscriminately seize the documents.
The CBI, however, said the documents seized from the office of Rajendra Kumar “prima facie reflect criminal conspiracy and criminal misconduct and abuse of official position by the accused people”.
Defending the seizure of documents from the office of Rajendra Kumar, located next to the chief minister’s office in the Delhi Secretariat, the agency said proper procedure for search was followed.
The decision to raid was not influenced by any political party and “the colour given by the AAP government is unwarranted”, it added.
The CBI said it raided the Delhi Secretariat while investigating corruption charges against Rajendra Kumar.
Kejriwal claimed his office was raided too, and linked it to a probe he had ordered against Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on issues related to alleged corruption in the Delhi and District Cricket Association which Jaitley had led earlier.
The CBI denied searching Kejriwal’s office.
