Raid on Arvind Kejriwal’s office: SC seeks CBI’s response

The Supreme Court on Friday asked the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to respond to the Delhi government’s plea to return the original documents, including important Cabinet notes seized during its raid on the office of chief minister Arvind Kejriwal’s principal secretary Rajinder Kumar that had resulted in the arrest of the senior bureaucrat.

A bench of Justices Ranjan Gogoi and P.C. Pant issued the notice on hearing senior advocate Rajeev Dhawan, for the Kejriwal government. The notice questioned the February 10 Delhi high court order reversing a trial court verdict directing the CBI to return the seized documents, which included Mr Kejriwal’s official diary maintaining his appointments.

The Delhi government has challenged the CBI probe into the corruption allegations against Mr Kumar also on the ground that the agency did not register a preliminary inquiry into the case and straightaway registered an FIR, which is against the rules. The CBI had raided Mr Kumar’s office in December 2015 and Mr Kejriwal had blamed Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying the raid was intended to deflect an inquiry into alleged corruption in the DDCA.

On a petition from the Delhi government had seeking return of the original documents, a special CBI court directed the investigating agency to release the documents. This order was, however, stayed by the Delhi high court, prompting the Kejriwal government to seek relief from the apex court.

The high court also allowed the CBI to retain all original documents during pendency of the investigation and rapped the trial court for making unnecessary observations against the CBI.