Six Haryana IAS officers named – says 3rd CBI chargesheet in ₹504 crore IDFC First Bank fund case | Today’s news
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has named a total of 19 accused, including six Haryana cadre IAS officers, in the third charge in connection with the embezzlement ₹504 crore in funds through IDFC First Bank and AU Small Finance Bank.
The IAS officers named in the CBI criminal case on Wednesday are Mohd. Shayin, Saket Kumar, Pardeep Kumar, Vineet Garg, Ram Kumar Singh and Pankaj Agarwal.
Three officials of IDFC First Bank Shamim Ahmed Dar, Sudha Goyal, Kuldeep Singh along with Charanjeet Singh Randhawa of AU Small Finance Bank were also named in the chargesheet filed in a special court in Panchkula in connection with the case.
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Haryana government officials named as accused in the charge sheet including Deepti Kaushik, Rajesh Goyal, Prince Sharma, Saurav Kumar, Parveen Kumar, Surender Jain, Surinder Kaur, Amit Kumar and Jugal Kishor.
What CBI said
CBI spokesperson Beena Yadav said in a statement that the accused have been charged with criminal conspiracy, cheating, destruction of evidence, forgery, using false documents as genuine, falsification of accounts, offenses of breach of trust and inducement under the BNS and offenses of bribery and offenses under the Prevention of Corruption Act.
“Investigations have shown that the accused civil servants in collaboration with the accused bankers IDFC First Bank and AU Small Finance Bank organized and executed the fraudulent scheme in a planned sequence,” the spokeswoman said.
The CBI has already indicted 18 other accused persons in this case, which included officials of the two banks, civil servants of the state government, private individuals and private companies.
“Following the filing of this chargesheet, the total number of accused so far in this case now stands at 37. The CBI conducted 54 searches and recovered incriminating evidence including gold worth approx. ₹20 million in this case and 26 accused have been arrested so far,” the spokeswoman said.
IDFC First Bank Fraud Case
The IDFC First Bank fraud case involves siphoning of public funds from eight departments of the Haryana government. The scam was organized through a network of ex-bank employees, middlemen and government officials who transferred funds from various empaneled banks to specific branches of IDFC First Bank and AU Small Finance Bank.
Read also | IDFC First says KPMG found that the Chandigarh fraud was an isolated fraud at the branch level
The scam came to light in February this year when the government decided to withdraw its money only to find a gross discrepancy between the actual bank balances and the numbers in its records at the Chandigarh branch.
The CBI alleged that the amounts so transferred were layered in multiple bank accounts and converted into cash and the accused unjustly enriched themselves.
“Eight ministries and organizations of the state government – Ministry of Panchayat, Panchkula and Kalka Municipal Corporations, Haryana School Shiksha Pariyojna Parishad, Haryana Labor Welfare Board, Haryana State Agricultural Marketing Board, Haryana State Pollution Control Board and Haryana Power Generation Corporation Limited – were affected by this scam.”
“In this process, the guidelines of the Haryana government’s finance department on financial prudence and fraud prevention were violated. Funds from these accounts were misappropriated through fraudulent means and transferred to third parties not associated with the government department,” the CBI said.
