Gurugram: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has arrested a senior Indian Forest Service (IFoS) officer who once headed Chandigarh’s renewable energy promotion body, after investigation revealed that nearly Rs 75 crore was fraudulently siphoned from its bank accounts into shell companies and allegedly partially diverted to a private firm where his wife and a close relative are directors.
Navneet Srivastava, who served as Chief Executive Officer of the Chandigarh Renewable Energy and Science & Technology Promotion Society, known as CREST, was produced before the Special Judge, CBI, Chandigarh, and remanded to three days of police custody, a CBI spokesperson told The Print.
CREST is a Chandigarh UT administration body set up to promote renewable energy and science and technology initiatives in the Union territory.
It maintains institutional funds in bank accounts and has been at the centre of a sprawling fraud case that investigators claim involved the systematic looting of public money through a network of shell companies and complicit bank officials.
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How the ‘fraud’ unfolded
According to the CBI, funds parked in three CREST accounts maintained with IDFC Bank at Chandigarh were allegedly misappropriated while Srivastava was at the helm, and the money was routed into various shell companies and converted for personal use by the beneficiaries. Investigation further revealed that part of the proceeds of crime allegedly found their way into the account of a private company whose directors include Srivastava’s wife and a close relative.
Srivastava’s arrest follows the earlier detention of two other CREST officials in the same case, Sukhwinder Singh Abrol, who served as project director, and Sahil Kukkar, an accountant. Both have been charge-sheeted and are currently in judicial custody.
The CBI, which took over the case from the Economic Offences Police Station, Chandigarh, recently filed its first charge sheet against 13 accused. Those named include five officials of the private bank, two public servants of CREST, two shell entities along with three of their partners and directors, and one private individual. All 13 are currently in judicial custody.
The bigger ‘scam’: IDFC and AU Small Finance Bank
The CREST case is part of a wider pattern of alleged bank fraud involving Haryana and Chandigarh government departments that has drawn CBI scrutiny in recent years.
In what investigators describe as an organised racket, public funds deposited in the accounts of government bodies and departments at private banks, primarily IDFC Bank and AU Small Finance Bank, were allegedly misappropriated through a network of bank insiders, government officials, and shell-company operators working in concert.
In the AU Small Finance Bank strand of the case, several Haryana government department accounts were similarly targeted, with funds allegedly diverted through fictitious transactions. Bank officials at the branch level are accused of facilitating unauthorised transfers, often in collusion with the account-operating officials of the concerned departments.
The alleged involvement of bank employees—five IDFC Bank officials figure in the first CREST charge sheet alone—points to what the CBI believes was a systemic compromise of internal banking controls, with public money treated as a pool available for private plunder.
Srivastava’s arrest signals that the investigation is now moving up the chain of command, from the accountants and project directors arrested earlier to the officer who, as CEO, was ultimately responsible for CREST’s alleged financial oversight.
(Edited by Gitanjali Das)