New Delhi: A forensic test of over 12 voice samples of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s suspended Principal Secretary Rajendra Kumar point to alleged corruption in award of Delhi government contracts worth over Rs 50 crore to a private firm, the CBI claimed today.

The CBI also conducted searches at six premises–in Delhi, Noida and Agra–including office of Kumar’s Chartered Accountant (CA) in the national capital during which they claimed to have recovered Rs 28 lakh in cash, an agency official said.

Kumar and four others were arrested by the CBI on Monday for allegedly showing undue favours to Endeavours System Pvt Ltd (ESPL) for getting the contracts.

The other accused are Tarun Sharma, Deputy Secretary in Kejriwal’s office, Ashok Kumar, a former Delhi government employee considered as a close aide of Rajendra Kumar, besides owners of ESPL–Sandeep Kumar and Dinesh Gupta.

The official said that a forensic report of over 12 voice samples has shown that Rajendra Kumar was allegedly seeking undue favours for the ESPL.

Kumar was allegedly sending voice messages instead of phone calls to other accused and some unknown private persons to give details of bribe and modus operandi to commit the offence they all are involved in, the official added.

The CBI had cross-verified these voice samples with the audio tape carrying Kumar’s voice during the ongoing investigation, the official claimed.

The agency official claimed that a substantial amount of bribe in the case was transferred to the ESPL through a little-known publishing house in Agra.

Searches were conducted at the premises of CA Amit Goyal in Rohini area, three premises of Dinesh Gupta and a firm– M/s Edocity Pedagogy–of Ashok Kumar in Noida, they said.

Besides, the premise of M/s Ratan Prakashan Mandir and Ravi Offset Printer in Agra was also searched by the CBI officials. It is alleged that the bribe collected by the accused was transferred in the garb of Commission by the publishing house to ESPL, the official said.

CBI officials had also visited Trade and Taxes department (also known as VAT department) office at ITO area and collected evidence including a software (which was part of the contract) that was lying unused there at the instance of Sandeep Kumar, the official said.

Rajendra Kumar had worked as Commissioner in Trade and Taxes department from May 2011 to October 2012. He had allegedly directed development of a software worth over Rs three crore via ESPL, the official claimed.

The arrest of the top Delhi government official had triggered a political storm with the Delhi government accusing the Centre of indulging in “political vendetta” and “paralysing” governance.

The CBI had registered a case in December last year alleging that Kumar had abused his official position by “favouring a particular firm in the last few years in getting tenders of Delhi government departments”.

The charges pressed by the CBI are under sections 120-B of IPC (criminal conspiracy), and 13(2), 13(1)(d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act (Criminal conspiracy, criminal misconduct etc) for allegedly favouring the ESPL in bagging five contracts.

The CBI has alleged that the accused persons had entered into a criminal conspiracy and caused a loss of Rs 12 crore to the Delhi government in award of contracts between 2007 and 2015, and claimed that the officials had taken “undue benefit” of over Rs three crore while awarding the contract.

PTI