Gurugram: The CBI Wednesday filed its third chargesheet in the IDFC First Bank–AU Small Finance Bank fraud case before the Special Judge for CBI cases, Panchkula. The central agency named six IAS officers, nine other Haryana government officials, and four bank officers. With this, the total number of persons chargesheeted in the case has gone up to 37.
This will be the first time in Haryana’s history that six IAS officers will face trial in a criminal case.
Earlier this year, at least eight IAS officers had skirted legal trouble as the Nayab Saini government refused the CBI sanction to prosecute them.
In 2013, though, a 1985 batch IAS officer of Haryana cadre, Sanjeev Kumar, was convicted in the JBT recruitment scam along with former CM Om Prakash Chautala, his son Ajay Singh Chautala, and others.
The six IAS officers named are Vineet Garg, Pankaj Agarwal, Mohd Shayin, Dr Saket Kumar, Pardeep Kumar and Ram Kumar Singh.
Of these, Agarwal, Pardeep Kumar and Ram Kumar Singh were already arrested by the CBI and are in judicial custody.
Vineet Garg is the senior-most IAS officer among the six. An IAS officer of 1991 batch, Garg is an additional chief secretary-rank officer placed at serial number four in Haryana’s bureaucratic hierarchy.
Agarwal, a 2000 batch IAS officer, is next in seniority among the six and was considered among the most trusted officers of the BJP government. He was entrusted the charge of Chief Electoral Officer in two consecutive assembly elections—2019 as well as 2024.
He was also appointed returning officer for the 2026 Rajya Sabha election, in which the BJP narrowly missed winning a seat considered guaranteed for the Congress.
Mohd Shayin is a 2002 batch IAS officer who has always held prominent positions in the current government.
Shayin’s name also cropped up in the infamous Faridabad Municipal Corporation scam along with those of three other IAS officers, Anita Yadav, Sonal Goel and Yash Garg.
However, the Haryana government denied sanction to prosecute them on an application moved by the State Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Department.
Dr Saket Kumar, a pediatrician by education, is a 2005 batch officer, and has worked in the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) as additional principal secretary to CM.
He was removed from that position and posted as Commissioner and Secretary in the Archives Department after the bank scam came to the fore.
Ram Kumar Singh is a promoted officer of 2012 batch, while Pardeep Kumar of 2011 batch retired on 30 June, the day he was arrested by the CBI.
The nine Haryana government officials named are Deepti Kaushik, Rajesh Goyal, Prince Sharma, Saurav Kumar (also referred to as Saurav Sharma), Parveen Kumar, Surender Jain, Surinder Kaur, Amit Kumar and Jugal Kishor.
The four bank officers named are Shamim Ahmed Dar, Sudha Goyal and Kuldeep Singh of IDFC First Bank, and Charanjeet Singh Randhawa of AU Small Finance Bank.
Two names missing
The charge sheet is notable for who is absent from it. The Haryana government had earlier granted sanction under Section 17A of the Prevention of Corruption Act to investigate eight IAS officers in the case. Two of them, D. K. Behera and Mani Ram, do not figure in Wednesday’s list.
Behera, a 2007-batch officer, had served as Director General of the Development and Panchayats Department, one of the departments worst hit by the fraud.
Cheques bearing what the CBI’s own papers describe as his signature were used in transactions worth crores from an account opened during his tenure, signatures whose authenticity is still to be confirmed through forensic examination.
The inquiry conducted by the Development and Panchayat Department, which formed the basis of the FIR, first registered by the State Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau and then by the CBI once the case was entrusted to the central agency, said that Behera’s signatures were forged.
Mani Ram, a 2009-batch officer, was among those whose premises were raided in June along with the other IAS officers under the scanner.
The CBI’s press statement said all three related cases, the Haryana matter and the two Chandigarh cases, “would remain under further investigation against other suspects/accused”.
The scale of the scam
The CBI’s investigation found that accused public servants, working with accused officers of IDFC First and AU Small Finance Banks, ran a planned scheme to move government money out of the state exchequer. Funds belonging to eight Haryana government departments, held in various empanelled banks, were transferred into specific branches of IDFC First and AU Small Finance Banks where the accused bank officers worked, after accounts were opened there as part of the conspiracy.
In the process, the Haryana Finance Department’s own guidelines on financial prudence and bank fraud prevention were violated. The money was then pushed out through fraudulent transactions to third parties with no connection to any government department, layered across multiple accounts, and converted into cash.
Eight Haryana government bodies were hit—the Department of Panchayat, the Municipal Corporations of Panchkula and Kalka, the Haryana School Shiksha Pariyojna Parishad, the Haryana Labour Welfare Board, the Haryana State Agricultural Marketing Board, the Haryana State Pollution Control Board, and the Haryana Power Generation Corporation Limited.
The CBI has pegged the total fraud in the Haryana case at Rs 504 crore. The Enforcement Directorate, running a parallel probe, has previously put the combined figure for Haryana and Chandigarh higher, at Rs 645 crore.
The case had begun with the State Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau, Haryana, before the CBI took it over at the state government’s own request.
Before Wednesday’s filing, the CBI had already chargesheeted 18 people in the case, bank officials, Haryana government public servants, private individuals and private companies.
In the course of the investigation into the bank fraud, the agency has conducted 54 searches, seized incriminating evidence including gold worth about Rs 20 crore, and arrested 26 people so far.
The CBI has also taken over two related cases from the Union Territory of Chandigarh—one concerning Chandigarh Smart City Limited and the Municipal Corporation Chandigarh, the other concerning the Chandigarh Renewable Energy and Science & Technology Promotion Society. Chargesheets have already been filed in both.
(Edited by Viny Mishra)
Also read: IDFC FIRST Bank fraud: CBI arrests IAS officer who oversaw Assembly, Rajya Sabha polls in Haryana