The whistleblower whose complaint led to the arrest and chargesheet against Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's trusted aide and principal secretary Rajendra Kumar, has claimed that he is being victimized. Ashish Joshi, an IAS Allied officer, told CNN News18’s Subhajit Sengupta he was victimised not just by the AAP government but also by a senior Union minister.
Q) Former Principal Secretary of Delhi has now been chargesheeted on the basis of your complaint. Did you expect this to happen when you filed the complaint?
A) As a whistleblower I feel vindicated. The stand against corruption is meaningless if you appoint an officer of doubtful integrity as your Principal Secretary and this is happening across the board in all the states.
Q) But who did you unearth this alleged scam?
A) I was Chief Digitisation Officer in Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board and at that time a lot of initiatives on e-governance were taking place and that is the time when one heard about certain things being done when he was IT Secretary. In April when I was shunted out by Delhi Government after I raised objections regarding appointment of 6 AAP volunteers in Delhi Dialogue Commission where I was holding additional charge of Member Secretary. It is after that that some officers probably felt bad about the way I was treated. So I was passed on papers regarding the illegal activities by Mr. Rajendra Kumar and on the basis of that I prepared a complaint and gave it to CBI. CBI has done an excellent investigation and they brought it to a logical end by filing a chargesheet.
Q) But did you feel discriminated against after you decided to take on such a senior bureaucrat?
A) As a whistleblower, I would like Whistleblowers Protection Act of 2011 to be strengthened and not diluted. There is a complete apathy towards whistleblowers and it can be a very important tool for fighting corruption. I was shunted out from Delhi government for pointing out flaws in the system. And when I joined Dept of Telecom I found there was total apathy for me. I needed to be posted in Delhi; my daughter was in the middle of an academic session. But I was posted out. I tried to meet the Union minister twice, but he never met me. Instead I was posted to Ranchi. It was with great difficulty that I could finally get a posting in Dehradun so that I could atleast stay with my parents. Maintaining two households is difficult.
Q) Arvind Kejriwal came to power riding the wave of the 'anti-corruption' movement. So why did he appoint Rajinder Kumar as principal secretary? Was he unaware of these allegations?
A) The letter which I wrote to CBI director I had clearly written that if the Chief Minister is appointing someone with doubtful integrity it sends a very wrong signal down the line to the officers. A person who claims to be the harbinger of the fight against corruption he himself appointed a person who was of doubtful integrity and he's not the only one...there are others also who I would not like to name. But the point is this is complete double standards.
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