The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) arrested senior Haryana IAS officer Pankaj Agarwal on Monday evening for his alleged role in the misappropriation of government funds maintained with IDFC First Bank’s Sector 32, Chandigarh, branch. Agarwal was produced before a Panchkula court on Tuesday morning and remanded in two-day CBI custody.
Agarwal was the principal secretary of the department of school education and the department of agriculture when accounts maintained by the Haryana School Shiksha Pariyojna Parishad and the Haryana State Agriculture Marketing Board were opened at the bank branch in Chandigarh in violation of the state finance department’s guidelines.
The CBI, which took over the probe on the Haryana government’s request in May, found that the funds were transferred into these accounts well in excess of permitted limits. Through a series of fraudulent transactions executed within these accounts, public funds were systematically misappropriated, resulting in a net loss of ₹60.54 crore to the state government. The CBI said it has collected incriminating evidence against the IAS officer during the course of its investigation.
The fraud detected within the education and agriculture departments is part of a far larger, systemic scam running out of the same IDFC First Bank branch. In total, ₹504 crore belonging to eight Haryana government departments was siphoned off and routed into various shell entities. The CBI has so far chargesheeted 17 individuals in connection with the wider Haryana case, a group that includes six bank officials from IDFC First Bank and AU Small Finance Bank, three Haryana government public servants, two companies, and six private individuals.
{{/usCountry}}The fraud detected within the education and agriculture departments is part of a far larger, systemic scam running out of the same IDFC First Bank branch. In total, ₹504 crore belonging to eight Haryana government departments was siphoned off and routed into various shell entities. The CBI has so far chargesheeted 17 individuals in connection with the wider Haryana case, a group that includes six bank officials from IDFC First Bank and AU Small Finance Bank, three Haryana government public servants, two companies, and six private individuals.
{{/usCountry}}Meanwhile, another IAS officer, RK Singh, who was previously arrested for fund misappropriation regarding the Municipal Corporation of Panchkula, has been remanded to judicial custody after his police remand ended.
The CBI has expanded its regional crackdown by taking over two additional corruption cases from the Union Territory of Chandigarh. One involves the Chandigarh Smart City Limited (CSCL) and the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation, while the other concerns the Chandigarh Renewable Energy and Science & Technology Promotion Society (CREST). Chargesheets have already been filed in both matters.
The agency has chargesheeted five bankers, a CSCL official, and a private individual in the CSCL probe, alongside five bankers, two CREST officials, four private persons, and two companies in the CREST investigation, where a senior Indian Forest Service officer has already been arrested.