Graft case: Court grants bail to two accused

A special court today granted bail to two persons, arrested in a graft case involving Delhi Chief Minister's former principal secretary Rajendra Kumar.
Special CBI Judge Arvind Kumar granted the relief to Kumar's close aide Ashok Kumar and Managing Director of a PSU R S Kaushik on a personal bond of Rs one lakh each and one surety of like amount, saying no purpose would be served by keeping them in custody.
Meanwhile, CBI opposed the bail plea of four other accused -- Tarun Sharma, former Deputy Secretary in Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's office, Dinesh Kumar Gupta and Sandeep Kumar, co-owners of a private firm, and G K Nanda, Kaushik's predecessor.

The court, after hearing arguments, reserved the order on Tarun's bail plea for tomorrow. The other three accused' bail pleas will be decided by the court on August 3.
Both Ashok and Kaushik have sought bail on the ground of parity with Kumar who was recently granted the relief by the court on July 26. Their pleas were, however, opposed by CBI.
The agency had earlier claimed that Endeavour Systems Pvt Ltd (ESPL) was floated by Kumar for the award of government contracts worth over Rs 50 crore.

CBI had registered a case against Kumar and others in December last year alleging that the officials had abused their official position by "favouring a particular firm in the last few years in getting tenders of Delhi government departments".

The accused have been charged under section 120-B of IPC (criminal conspiracy) and provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act relating to criminal misconduct for allegedly favouring ESPL in bagging of five contracts.
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 contracts.
This is the same case in which the agency had come under scathing criticism from the court which had directed it to return documents sought by the Delhi government seized during December 15, 2015 search of Kejriwal's office.

Arrest of the top state government official had triggered a political storm with the Delhi government accusing the Centre of indulging in "political vendetta" and "paralysing" governance.