1. Rajendra Kumar comes from a modest middle class background. He did his schooling from a fully govt funded residential school named Netarhat School.
2. Rajendra subsequently went to IIT Kanpur from where he obtained a B. Tech. degree in electrical engineering before joining the IAS in 1989.
3. He along with 2 other IAS officers of AGMUT Cadre Vijay Kumar and Gitanjali G Kundra and Ashok Kumar were given the Prime Ministers Award for Excellence in Public Administration on April 21, 2008. Besides the computerization work done by him won the following awards.
a. Four National e- Governance awards (One of them for Caltoonz). No organization has achieved it in the country.
b. Indian Express Award for e Governance (Only three organisations get it in a year across the country.
c. Computer society of India award for e- Governance.
d. Study from IIM Ahmedabad thoroughly praised the manner in which the computerization was done on a shoestring budget.
4. It is remarkable that all the developments took place without hiring an outside agency, but hiring own teachers and part time programmers by paying just Rs 6000 to Rs 25,000.
5. The design of ERP was so farsighted and robust that the entire Education Department is still drawing salary for around 50,000 teachers online, taking mark-sheets, SLC, admission etc. of more than 18 Lakhs students, and all other routine works through the online ERP. It would be pertinent here to mention that after a lapse of 13 years, even today NO other Indian state has been able to achieve the level of computerization that was done at that time with minimal resources.
6. Ashish Joshi is a 1992 batch Indian Post and Telecommunication Finance Service (IP&TAFS) officer. He made a public statement that he was being humiliated and repatriated because he smoked cigar and chewed gutkha. Government of Delhi refuted this allegation and issued an extra ordinary explanation which can been seen here.
An extract from this explanation as reported by Indian Express is as below
“The Indian Express had reported on Saturday that the government, in a letter to the telecom secretary towards the end of April, forwarded a note sent by DDC vice-chairman Ashish Khetan to DDC chairman, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, which said that “on several occasions, he (Joshi) has been found smoking cigars and chewing tobacco within office premises. This was mentioned in the note written by the DDC vice-chairman to the chief minister but this was not a reason for Joshi’s repatriation. The reasons are far too serious,” a government official said.The government’s statement read, “The officer concerned is supposed to be aware of the conduct rules of service. There are clear instances of multiple violations of these rules by this officer, which have now been duly communicated to his parent cadre.”
Joshi takes this as a humiliation and holds Rajendra Kumar responsible for the same. His grudge against Rajendra Kumar was openly mentioned in his email to the chief secretary K K Sharma. The content of his email to the chief secretary of NCT Delhi can be seen here.
Mukesh Kumar Meena is an IPS Officer of 1989 batch in AGMUT Cadre. He was appointed by the Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung as Chief of ACB in Delhi by overruling the objections of the Delhi Govt and against the wishes of the Chief Minister Arvind Kejariwal.
His appointment is perceived as an effort by the central government to control and tame the anti-corruption body which AAP govt has been using as a tool against corruption and corrupt officers.
Ashish Joshi and Meena regularly go for a walk together in the park. Both of them have grudge against the Delhi government and decide to cooperate with each other in settling their scores with the Delhi govt.
Ashish Joshi, after his repatriation orders from the Delhi govt., files a complaint in Parliament Street Police Station, New Delhi in May 2015. This complain is more of a threat to Mr. Rajendra Kumar and Mr. Nagendra Sharma, the Media Advisor to the Delhi govt. than a complaint. The media reporting of the complaint can be seen here.
The summary of this complaint is as below.
a. A social activist Indu Prakash Singh files a complaint with the CM of Delhi against Ashish Joshi on April 4, 2015.
b. Ashish Joshi asks Rajendra Kumar to refute the allegations and accusations against him in the complaint of the social activist within 48 hours and threatens Kumar to file criminal complaints against him if he did not meet the demands of Joshi. The language used by Joshi in this complain against Kumar shows that he holds Kumar responsible for the complaint filed against Joshi by the social activist. The extract of the language from Ashish Joshi’s complaint about his communication to Kumar is as below.
“If an official refutation regarding the email sent by Indu Prakash Singh is not issued by you within 48 hours, I will be constrained to file an FIR against all, as the mail has pictures of Singh meeting the CM and Singh could not have issued the email without the involvement of senior officials and officials in the CM’s office”
c. Rajendra Kumar does not accede to the demands of Joshi
d. Joshi files this complaint against him in Parliament Street police Station.
There does not seem to be any action on the complain of Joshi by the Parliament Street police station. Joshi talks to Meena and Meena advises him to file a complaint against Rajendra Kumar with ACB after collecting some information about Rajendra Kumar and his working style. Joshi speaks to many people in the administrative circle whom he considers useful against Kumar and files the copied below complaint against Kumar with the ACB on 12 June 2015.
Meena tries his best to malign and implicate Rajendra Kumar on the basis of this complaint and also releases a copy of this complaint against Kumar to media. However, the officers under him tell him that there is no substance in the complaint and it would not be possible to implicate Kumar on the basis of this frivolous and bereft of facts complain.
Meena advises Joshi to submit his complaint to CBI and also to request ACB to transfer his complaint to CBI on the grounds that since ACB did not take any action on his complaint, he has already submitted his complaint to CBI and therefore ACB should transfer his complaint to CBI. This was done despite the fact that Meena had initially said in his press briefing, after he had made the complaint public, that the ACB was conducting an inquiry into Joshi’s complaint.
The true facts and substance as mentioned in Joshi’s complaint are as below.
1. Joshi says that he learnt about the corrupt practices of Kumar while implementing e-governance in DUSIB but does not say anything about how Kumar was related to DUSIB, or for that matter “Caltoonz” by Education Department or VAT or health Department.
2. He alleges that Rajendra Kumar has formed a company by the name of Endeavour Systems Pvt. Ltd. along with Ashok Kumar, Sandeep Kumar and Dinesh Kumar Gupta. On perusal of the records related to the Endeavour Systems Pvt. Ltd it can be clearly seen that neither Mr Rajendra kumar or Mr Ashok kumar or any of their even distant relatives is either a director or shareholder of the said company. In fact, none of them even share caste with Mr, Rajendra Kumar. It can be readily seen on ROC website of the ministry of company affairs (it can also be viewed here).
3. Ashok Kumar (Phone No. 95603*****), indeed worked for the Govt of Delhi and worked as the Project Manager for the Caltoonz Project. He has confirmed that he knew Rajendra Kumar since his school days and considered him his mentor, guru, guide and source of inspiration.
Both Rajendra Kumar and Ashok Kumar studied at the same residential school in Bihar. It seems all the alumni of this residential school, by the name of Netarhat School, have a very close and strong bonding with each other and they all keep meeting each other on various formal and informal social occasions. The school alumni has a number of senior bureaucrats, technocrats, professionals and civil servants serving the central and state govt across the country, having Four IAS officers only in Delhi Govt.
4. Ashok Kumar indeed resigned from the govt services in 2009 and joined hands with some of his very long time friends with whom he has been a friend since his school days and who have already been in private business for more than 20 years.
He confirms that he joined hands with his close and friendly seniors from his school days who had already been in business offering to contribute his experiences and skills to help the business grow. He continues to be a part of this business team. He further confirms that neither Rajendra Kumar nor any of his direct or indirect relatives (even distant relatives) are share-holder or director of a company or business that he (Ashok Kumar) is associated with as a Director, share-holder or in any other capacity.
5. Ashok Kumar had given a written statement to the media, when his name was first mentioned in the media after Meena had made Joshi’s complain public, that not a single penny from the Caltoonz project was diverted from its officially intended use, almost the entire amount went for payment of Honorarium to Govt school teachers, and part time multimedia artists, with little amount going towards purchase of computers.
6. Ashok Kumar and his partners, invited Sandeep Kumar and Dinesh Gupta in the year 2013 who have already been working in the field of IT services for the last 7 years to work on some joint project, nothing to do with the Government. The only relation between Ashok Kumar and Sandeep Kumar that can be established on the basis of facts on record is that they first came in contact with each other while working together on the same project in the department of education of the Delhi govt and kept in touch with each other ever since and once again joined hands to work together after a gap of 7 years when Ashok Kumar and his long time friends and partners decided to venture in the IT services company named Educity, which does not do business in the Government field.
7. A list of all the companies that Sandeep Kumar (DIN No. 00643605), Dinesh Kumar Gupta (DIN No. 00643666) or Ashok Kumar (DIN No. 03342412) are associated with has been checked with their DIN numbers. None of these companies have name of any other person as a director or shareholder who could be linked or related to Rajendra Kumar in anyway.
8. The allegation by Joshi that Mr, Rajendra Kumar got Endeavour Systems Pvt. Ltd. empanelled with ICSIL is also impossible since any Department head of Delhi Govt. other than DSIIDC chairman does not control ICSIL, the Chairman of which is ex post facto chairman of ICSIL, and Rajendra kumar was never posted with DSIIDC. The list of empanelled vendors with ICSIL available on their website (http://icsil.in/wp-cont…/uploads/…/01/Vendor-Empanelment.pdf) does not contain the name of Endeavour Systems or any other similar name although it has the name of 77 other empanelled vendors.
9. Sandeep Kumar has confirmed that his company Endeavour Systems had done a very small business with ICSIL, and till date would not have got payment of more than Rs. 5 to 6 crores in 5 years. So the amount of Rs. 50 crores in the allegation remains far-fetched. He further says that all software projects were given through open tender, other than manpower supply, for which NICSI (Govt. of India Company) benchmark was used, because quality manpower or programmers cannot be chosen through tenders. Sandeep also confirms that the total business done for these Delhi Govt. entities during the entire business life of Enveavour Systems of 9 years has not been more than 9.5 crore in contrast to the allegation of the irregularity of 50 crore in the complaint of Joshi. In any case, the processes adopted by a Government company is none of the business of a private company.
10. The Pixel Infotech mentioned in the complain was incorporated on 30 June 2004.
The company is defunct since 2010. It indeed had the name of Pratibha Sahay having DIN Number 00126922 as one of its directors appointed on 10th January 2010. This company is registered at the same address that some of the companies, of which Ashok Kumar is a director of, is registered at.
This address happens to be the office address of the regular CA and Auditor of the companies that Ashok Kumar is a Director of. The CA, Mr. U K Sinha, has confirmed that Pratibha Sahay, having DIN Number 00126922 who was the director of Pixel Infotech Private Limited, is his wife and is also the director of Winklix Internet Private Limited and The Best Institute of Accounting and Taxation Pvt. Ltd.
He has further said that he or his wife Pratibha Sahay have absolutely no relation with Mr. Rajendra Kumar or his wife Nandini Sahay except that they both have “Sahay” as their surnames. Besides, The named Pixel infotech has not done any business in its life other than doing some business in cements worth around Rs 12 lakhs, absolutely nothing to do with Government.
11. There is no source or lead mentioned in the complaint which, upon preliminary investigation, can give rise to even some degree of doubt or suspicion on Mr. Rajendra Kumar.
12. Last but not the least the 2 largest projects bagged by the company worth around 2-3 crores are ERP for VAT and DJB. None of them were awarded during the tenure of Mr. Rajendra Kumar.
a. Moreover for DJB project, the NSDL(National Securities depository limited) estimated a cost of Rs. 20 crores, which was taken by Endeavour for Rs. 2.19 Crores (One tenth the cost).
b. Even in the VAT project, Rs. 12 crores was surrendered by the VAT department out of already estimated and sanctioned amount by Govt. of India Mission mode project under NEGP (National E Governance programe) as the work was done in only around 2 crores, way below the estimate of more than Rs 14 Crores. In fact Companies have charged more amount for preparing the RFP in other states.
The author of this blog is an executive in a private firm and went to same school, where Rajendra Kumar studied as his senior. Views expressed here are his own.