New Delhi: Escalating its probe into the alleged Rs 661-crore fraud at IDFC First Bank’s Chandigarh Sector 32 branch, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Saturday conducted searches at the residences of three Haryana-cadre IAS officers and an IFS officer, amid allegations that public servants helped facilitate the diversion of government funds in return for undue benefits.
Sources in the agency identified the IAS officers as Mohammed Shayin, Pankaj Agarwal and Pardeep Kumar. The fourth person raided is Navneet Kumar Srivastava, an AGMUT-cadre IFS officer on deputation to Chandigarh Renewable Energy and Science & Technology Promotion Society (CREST).
The central agency took over the probe into the illegal diversion of funds at the request of the Haryana government, after the case was initially probed by the State Vigilance & Anti-Corruption Bureau.
ThePrint reported last month that the trio of IAS officers was among eight whose names were cleared by the state government for the CBI to investigate.
While the probe into the alleged diversion of state funds of Mukhya Mantri Gramin Awas Yojana scheme was in full swing, two more alleged cases of embezzlement emerged from the same Chandigarh bank branch, involving funds of the city’s municipal corporation and CREST.
The CBI has pegged the scale of the alleged fraud at IDFC Bank’s Sector 32 branch at Rs 661 crore. The scam surfaced in February when a routine attempt to close a government account revealed massive discrepancies.
IDFC First Bank disclosed the unauthorised transactions to stock exchanges, admitted its employees had acted in collusion with outsiders, and returned Rs 578 crore, principal and interest, to the Haryana government. The state then handed the investigation over to the CBI.
An agency spokesperson said in a statement Sunday that the first chargesheet in the case, filed last month before a special CBI court in Panchkula, has detailed the role of public servants in the alleged fraud, and a subsequent chargesheet is set to be filed soon. The agency has also identified Noida-based firm Vipam Consultancy as a key beneficiary of the “proceeds of crime”.
“During the investigation, evidence has surfaced suggesting that public servants had colluded with bank officials and facilitated the opening of accounts, transfer of funds and subsequent diversion thereof. It is alleged that they have received undue advantages for their facilitation and inaction,” the CBI spokesperson stated.
“M/s Vipam Consultancy Pvt Ltd, Noida, was found to have received the proceeds of crime into its account, which were subsequently transferred to the Director’s personal account. Incriminating documents, digital devices, property documents and other relevant material were seized during the search operations.”
According to the probe so far, two bank officials—Ribhav Rishi, former manager of the IDFC First Bank Sector 32 branch, and Abhay Kumar, relationship manager at AU Small Finance Bank, have been identified as key accused, who allegedly planned the conspiracy by targeting government departments and persuading officials to park unused state funds in fixed deposits with their banks by offering an unusually high interest rate of 10 percent annually.
The CBI probe revealed that funds deposited into bank accounts allegedly opened on the instructions of Rishi and Kumar were transferred to shell companies created in the names of the accused’s relatives.
The agency has identified one such shell company as Capco Fintech Services, registered in the names of Rishi’s driver Bhupinder Singh and his wife Sapna. Another shell company, RS Traders, was registered in the driver’s name, while one Swastik Desh Projects was floated in the name of Swati Singla, wife of Kumar, and her brother.
The accused rotated the funds among the accounts of eight Haryana government departments and two departments of the Union Territory of Chandigarh to create multiple layers and a confusing audit trail. Even the banks’ alert system was altered to prevent an alarm from being raised about these illegal fund movements, according to the CBI.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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