I made an update of the UI for ASP.NET MVC. Now, in the tree view only the root is shown and no longer any child.
The view is as follows:
                @(Html.Kendo().TreeView()
                              .Name("treeviewInner")
                              .BindTo((IEnumerable<TreeViewItemModel>)ViewBag.TreeViewContent)  
                )
Here is the code in the controller:
        private List<TreeViewItemModel> GetTreeViewData()
        {
            var items = new List<TreeViewItemModel>()
            {
                new TreeViewItemModel()
                {
                    Text = "0",
                    Items = new List<TreeViewItemModel>()
                    {
                        new TreeViewItemModel()
                        {
                            Text = "1"
                        }
                    }
                }
            };
            return items;
        }
        public ActionResult TreeViewContent(int wbsHeaderId)
        {
            ViewBag.TreeViewContent = GetTreeViewData();
            return PartialView();
        }