Rajendra Kumar: PM Excellence Award Winner Now Under CBI Scanner

Who is IAS officer Rajendra Kumar, what has he done?

IAS officer Rajendra Singh outside the CBI headquarter on December 16, 2015. (Photo: PTI)

On 15 December, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) raided the Chief Minister of Delhi, Arvind Kejriwal’s Office in Delhi.

The CBI and the Centre have said that the raid was targeted towards the Principal Secretary of the CMO, Rajendra Kumar and not the CM.

Kejriwal has however alleged that the CBI was Modi-sent and that the aim was to take away the file on Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s part in a DDCA scam.

Amid the raid, Kejriwal’s “psychopath” comment, the Centre’s retort, and the apology tug-of-war, the identity of the bureaucrat in question has attracted attention.

Kumar was posted as the Joint Secretary at the Higher and Technical Education, IT Department, before becoming Principal Secretary to Arvind Kejriwal. (Photo: PTI)

A 1989 batch IAS officer, 47-year-old Rajendra Kumar is of the Arunachal Pradesh, Goa and Mizoram (AGMU) cadre.

Kumar is an electrical engineer from IIT Kharagpur and is personally known to Kejriwal who left the Indian Revenue Service to be a social activist and then a politician.

Born on December 16, in the year 1966, Kumar was posted as the Joint Secretary at the Higher and Technical Education, IT Department, before becoming the Principal Secretary to Arvind Kejriwal.

Remember the scuffle between the Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung and Arvind Kejriwal? Kumar was a part of that tug-of-war as well.

The Centre had refused to recognise Kumar’s appointment as the Principal Secretary of the state Home Ministry. (Photo: PTI)

According to a report by The Indian Express, the Centre had refused to recognise Kumar’s appointment as the Principal Secretary of the state Home Ministry.

Major postings of Kumar have been:

• Deputy Commissioner, Lunglei and Aizwal districts (Both Mizoram)
  
• North East Delhi Chairman and MD, Delhi Transco Ltd, Power Department
  
• NCT of Delhi Secretary
  
• Administrative Reforms Department
  
• Health and Family Welfare Department
  
• Delhi Commissioner (Taxes)
  

He has also received the Prime Minister’s Award for Excellence in Public Administration in the year 2006-07.

The award was incidentally for ‘Radical Improvement’ in Delhi’s government school system.

On December 15, the CBI charged him with criminal conspiracy and misconduct.

Indian and foreign currency, along with 14 liquor bottles were recovered from his house in the CBI raid, according to a report by NDTV .