The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has arrested 2000-batch IAS officer Pankaj Agarwal in a major financial fraud case linked to Chandigarh, officials said on Monday night. He is the second IAS officer to be arrested in the case after Ram Kumar Singh.
According to investigators, officials of IDFC First Bank and AU Small Finance Bank had colluded with several IAS officers to siphon off funds from the bank accounts of eight Haryana government departments and two Chandigarh administration departments.
The CBI has pegged the quantum of loss due to the fraud at around ₹657 crore, while the Enforcement Directorate, which is also probing the scam, has estimated the loss at ₹645 crore.
Preliminary investigations have revealed that Pankaj Agarwal was involved in the scam while he was Administrative Secretary of the Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare Department at the time of the irregularities.
Investigators said that a total of ₹10 crore was siphoned off from the Haryana State Agriculture Marketing Board’s account in IDFC First Bank, Sector 32, Chandigarh.
The account was maintained in the name of the Agriculture Marketing Development Fund. The funds were allegedly transferred to two shell firms — SRR Planning, which received ₹9.55 crore, and Mannat Contractors, which received ₹25 lakh.
Both firms were allegedly created to divert government funds. Besides Agarwal, eight other IAS officers are now under the CBI’s scanner.
Two of them have already been arrested, while the others — Mohd Shayin, Mani Ram Sharma, Pardeep Kumar, Vineet Garg, Saket Kumar and DK Behera — are also being investigated.
Agarwal is also allegedly linked to the siphoning of over ₹50 crore from the Haryana School Shiksha Pariyojana Parishad when he was Administrative Secretary of the School Education Department.
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