No more anti graft crusader

Arvind Kejriwal, was an angry man. He was angry with the country, with the system and with the corruption it allowed to thrive upon. He wanted to throw all the corrupt behind the bars. Alas, as a Chief Minister of Delhi, Kejriwal's transformation is complete.

He has become a 100 per cent politician, trying to shield corrupt officials. His ruckus over the CBI raid on one of his corrupt Babus is jarring. Not only is he trying to shield his bureaucrat friend, Rajendra Kumar, from the charges the latter is facing, but is also colouring it as Centre's attack on a State government and on the very principles of federalism.

Today he has come out with another gem of a tweet: "A CBI officer told me that they have been asked to finish off the Opposition.” Could CBI do it? Is Rajendra Kumar the Opposition for the Centre?

In August, 2011, the present Delhi Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party chief, Arvind Kejriwal, was an angry man. He was angry with the country, with the system and with the corruption it allowed to thrive upon. So, when Anna Hazare gave the clarion call to fight corruption, Kejriwal along with his other colleagues from his India Against Corruption organization, who included the likes of Kiran Bedi, Prashant Bhushan, Shanti Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav and Swami Agnivesh etc, plunged into the movement.

Making his moves deftly, Kejriwal soon hijacked the theme and content of the agitation to float his Aam Aadmi Party. In the process, he used to interact with us frequently. The concept of his Jan Lok Pal Bill came as a whiff of fresh air and people liked it...including the corrupt sections of the Delhi civil society.

Kejriwal was nurturing a dream in those days - to throw even corrupt Prime Ministers, corrupt members of the Judiciary and all those Babus who converted opportunities into money, along with corrupt politicians, behind the bars with none spared. The draft of the Jan Lok Pal Bill was on these lines: PM can be investigated with the permission of the seven-member Lokpal bench. PM can be investigated by Lokpal after she/he vacates office. Judiciary can be investigated, though high-level members may be investigated only with the permission of a seven-member Lokpal bench. MPs can be investigated, but their conduct within Parliament, such as voting, cannot be investigated. Lower bureaucracy (all public servants) would be included. Only senior officers (Group A) will be covered. Anti-Corruption wing of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) will be merged into the Lokpal.

Punishment for corruption ranged from penalties, removal from office, imprisonment etc though it said clarifications were needed for many of the suggestions.

Kejriwal was angry that some sections of the society were opposed to the provisions and disliked the clarifications part. That was Kejriwal. Alas, as a Chief Minister of Delhi, Kejriwal's transformation is complete. He has become a 100 per cent politician, trying to shieldcorrupt officials. His ruckus over the CBI raid on one of his corrupt Babus is jarring.

Not only is he trying to shield his bureaucrat friend, Rajendra Kumar, from the charges the latter is facing, but is also colouring it as Centre's attack on a State government and on the very principles of federalism. He is also trying to divert the attention of people from the murky happenings in his own office by dragging the DDCA (Delhi District Cricket Association) affairs into this. Corruption in DDCA is another matter and it has got nothing to do with Kejriwal's office.

As the Union Minister of Parliamentary Affairs, M Venkaiah Naidu, rightly pointed out in the Parliament the other day, the case against the accused bureaucrat is an old one. There are complaints galore against him and the Anti-Corruption Bureau had forwarded a complaint registered against Rajender Kumar to the CBI.

Senior bureaucrat Ashish Joshi, former Member-Secretary of the Delhi Dialogue Commission, who was ill-treated by AAP activists and had fallen out of Kejriwal's favour, had approached the investigating agency with his complaint on July 13 after ACB allegedly sat on it for a month. Joshi said he had submitted the complaint to ACB on June 12.

Additional Commissioner S S Yadav was handling this complaint. With Joshi moving the CBI, ACB chief M K Meena forwarded the complaint and other documents to the probe agency.

A 1989 IAS batch officer, Rajendra Kumar came under CBI investigation for alleged graft and reportedly setting up many companies to award work orders without going through the process of tendering during May 2002 to February 2005 when he was Director of Education.

It is common knowledge here in Delhi that even as a Secretary (IT), Secretary (Health) and Commissioner (VAT), Kumar's style of functioning did not change. An IIT Delhi alumnus, Rajendra Kumar reportedly formed a company called Endeavors Systems Private Ltd along with some others and in 2007, when he became the Secretary (IT) in the Delhi government, he got the company empanelled with Intelligent Communication Systems India Ltd (ICSIL), a public sector unit, and procured contracts free of cost.

Partners in the business are some former senior employees of the Delhi Secretariat, it is being said. This group which controls the Secretariat and the Chief Minister's Office (CMO) has a field day with almost every work going its way, it is being alleged.

It should be recalled here that the Aam Aadmi Party had welcomed a judgement of the Supreme Court striking down the ‘Single Directive’ introduced by Section 6A of the CBI Act and also introduced in the CVC Act, which required the CBI to take the consent of the government even for beginning corruption investigations against government officials of the level of Joint Secretary and above.

Arvind Kejriwal's stand was that "this provision (Single Directive) was introduced in 2003 in the CBI and CVC Acts by the NDA government.

Both the NDA and the UPA governments had taken advantage of this absurd provision to protect senior Babus who were involved in corruption along with the Ministers themselves who, in brazen conflict of interest, then denied permission for even investigating their Babus".

Secondly, the investigation against Rajendra Kumar is an ongoing inquiry related to complaints dating from 2007. Public Prosecutor Vinod Kumar Sharma, appointed by the Delhi government, who had scrutinised the charge-sheet in the Rs 100 crore transport scam, has accused the Principal Secretary of Delhi Government, of pressurising him not to finalise the report or face suspension.

Seeking his withdrawal from the case, the Public Prosecutor in a letter to the ACB chief said “it is respectfully submitted that scrutiny of challan (charge sheet) of the case was done by me on September 1. Today, September 2, I was called by some senior officials of Delhi government wherein I was pressurised by them, who are alleged suspects. They directed me to produce the file before them before finalisation. I am a sick person of high blood pressure. I am unable to bear pressure and do justice in the case. I may be allowed to withdraw myself from the case.”

Kejriwal is in the know of all this. Yet, he maintains that a raid on his principle secretary is a raid on him. Today he has come out with another gem of a tweet: "A CBI officer told me that they have been asked to finish off the Opposition.”

Could CBI do it? Is Rajendra Kumar, the Opposition for the Centre? Has Kejriwal lulled to sleep that vigilance in maintaining authority of the law is his first and most imperious duty? Probe Arun Jaitley who headed the DDCA for its corrupt practices by all means. But why defend Rajendra Kumar?

Sir Pherozeshah Mehta, a Parsi Indian political leader, activist, and a leading lawyer of Mumbai, who was knighted by the British Government in India for his service to the law, once said: "All men have their noble and baser instincts struggling within them and you will find that even in the most well-disciplined organisations, in the most well-balanced minds, after the noble instincts have well-established their sway, a moment comes when the smallest rift upsets the work of years, casts everything into confusion and generates a whirlwind at which those who knew the men before as good and worthy stand aghast.”

That is an irony of life! I am aghast Arvind Kejriwal ji!