Did the CBI go overboard during the December 15 raid on IAS officer Rajendra Kumar, the principal secretary to Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal?

The Aam Aadmi Party has accused the Centre of unleashing the CBI to raid the chief minister’s office, as well as using the agency to look for files related to allegations of corruption in the administration of cricket in the national capital, of which Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has been an integral part. On Wednesday a local CBI court told the agency that it "cannot be clothed with divine powers" to flout its own rules, ordering it to return documents not related to the case to the Delhi government.

According to official documents accessed by The Hindu , the CBI may have misled the media on a few critical aspects in the initial moments of its investigation against Mr Kumar, a winner of the Prime Minister’s Award for Excellence in Public Administration. Also, it may have filed a case under excise act against Mr Kumar, where none existed.

The CBI did not respond to a detailed questionnaire sent by The Hindu on January 1.

However, a senior CBI official insisted that their investigation is unearthing more details about Kumar’s role in routing contracts to Endeavour Systems Private Limited, a private company they claim was a proxy for him.

According to the Search List—it contains the details of property seized by CBI during a search—prepared on the December 15, the day of the raid: “The Email ID and password of Sh Rajendra Kumar was also obtained and the password of Email ID has been changed through Sh Sushil Kumar, Asstt programmer, CBI, ACB Delhi.”

The above statement went against the informal briefing to the media at the CBI headquarters on December 15 evening, during which the agency claimed Mr Kumar was not parting with his email ID and password.

The second aspect of the raid that has further raised questions about the CBI’s conduct is the FIR filed on the day of the raid under the Delhi Excise Act against Mr Kumar. The FIR is for allegedly possessing more liquor than legally allowed.

The FIR said the CBI recovered 11.75 litres of sealed liquor bottles from the house, besides three unsealed bottles. The maximum liquor thus recovered was 14 litres.

Excise inspector Rajesh Batra, who endorsed Mr Kashmiri’s complaint to the SHO of the New Friends Colony police station, pointed out that the maximum quantity of intoxicant that an individual above 25 years old can possess in Delhi is 18 litres.

At the time of the raid, Mr Kumar and his wife were present at home. This means they could have legally possessed 18 litres of hard liquor, and what was seized was within legal limits.