Chandigarh: In a curious move, the Haryana government has asked the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to send separate prosecution requests for each of the six IAS officers, with the allegations against each, before it decides whether they can be prosecuted in the Rs 647-crore IDFC First Bank fraud case.
The move is bound to slow down the trial, given the fact that separate allegations have already been given in the CBI’s chargesheet.
A senior Haryana government officer confirmed this to ThePrint. The Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) of the Centre had written to the state seeking its comments on the CBI’s request for sanction under Section 19 of the Prevention of Corruption (PC) Act.
The Chief Secretary’s office replied that it wants a separate application for each officer, not a single one for all six.
Section 19 of the PC Act is the legal gate that stands between a chargesheet and a trial. It says that no court can take cognisance of offences like bribery, criminal misconduct or abuse of position by a public servant unless the authority competent to remove him from office has given prior sanction. For an IAS officer, that authority is the Centre.
The officer explained the process. The sanction to prosecute has to come from the Centre. So the CBI wrote to the Centre. Without such a sanction, a public servant cannot be put on trial for corruption, notwithstanding the fact that a charge sheet has already been submitted before the Special CBI Court. The DoPT then asked Haryana for its view, and the state wants the CBI to go back and file six applications.
The CBI filed its third chargesheet on 2 September before the special CBI Court in Panchkula. It named 19 more accused. That took the number of people chargesheeted in the case to 37.
The new list has six IAS officers of the Haryana cadre, three IDFC First Bank officials, one official of AU Small Finance Bank and nine other Haryana government employees. The chargesheet has a separate section on each accused, including the six officers.
The Haryana government had itself given the CBI prior approval under Section 17A of the PC Act to investigate these six officers. The fresh demand for separate applications will now only add to the delay.
Section 17A was added to the PC Act in 2018. It says that police or an agency like the CBI cannot start an enquiry, inquiry or investigation against a public servant without prior approval, if the allegation relates to a decision or recommendation made in official duty. The government had given sanction under Section 17-A in May this year.
ThePrint has already published separate reports on the allegations against each of the six.
The charge sheet levels serious allegations against all the six IAS officers, pointing to their alleged culpability in the crime, and some of them are alleged to have received cash, in gold coins or in the form of hotel bills or in one case even getting the services of call girls from Delhi and Mujra parties in a Zirakpur property.
Here is in brief what the chargesheet says about them.
Vineet Garg: He took over as the chairman of the Haryana State Pollution Control Board (HSPCB) on 2 December 2024. The CBI says the board’s deposits began flowing to IDFC First Bank soon after. It alleges he moved the comparison of bank rates from the tamper-proof e-office system to a physical file.
He approved all six placements of the board’s money with IDFC First, a newly empanelled bank whose limit was Rs 50 crore. On 24 October 2025, he allegedly struck out the Member Secretary’s note in his own hand and sent a further Rs 25 crore to the same bank.
This took the board’s exposure to Rs 163.68 crore. The CBI also alleges that two gold coins of 50 grams each were delivered at his house before Diwali 2025 at the instance of Ribhav Rishi, a former IDFC employee and the main accused.
The agency puts the loss to the board at Rs 159.86 crore.
Mohammed Shayin: As the Managing Director of the Haryana Power Generation Corporation Limited (HPGCL), Shayin allegedly brought Rishi, then an IDFC First branch manager, into the corporation’s banking in February 2024. The CBI says he forwarded Rishi’s number to a senior colleague before any file existed.
He approved an unneeded account with a bank that was not yet empanelled and agreed to break a running Rs 108-crore fixed deposit early so that Rs 50 crore could go to IDFC First.
Later, as the Director General in the Finance Department, he allegedly removed the Rs 50-crore ceiling for such banks on his own, without the approval of the competent authority. The CBI says Rishi paid hotel and party bills for him worth Rs 1.67 lakh.
Saket Kumar: He was the Commissioner and Secretary, Development and Panchayats, and also held additional charge as the Managing Director of the Haryana Power Generation Corporation Limited (HPGCL).
The CBI says a file seeking orders only on the choice of bank was disposed of by him with one word, “Seen”. Three accounts were then opened, two of them with IDFC First and AU Small Finance Bank. No quotations were invited and the Finance Department was not asked.
He allegedly phoned the Director General to push the two banks. The chargesheet says that when the alleged fraud was about to surface, he approved closing the accounts instead of reporting it. A recorded conversation, purportedly between two co-accused, quotes instructions attributed to him to keep the matter from spreading. The CBI puts the fraudulent debits in the two accounts at about Rs 161 crore.
Pankaj Agarwal: The CBI alleges that as Commissioner and Secretary, School Education, Agarwal took a banking proposal from Rishi in his own chamber on 19 December 2024. The Chief Financial Advisor of the Finance Department allegedly told him over the phone that the limit was Rs 50 crore, but he kept asking how Rs 100 crore could be placed.
On 31 December, he allegedly told officers to redraft the notesheet so that the file would not go to the Finance Department. The new note was ante-dated. Rs 100 crore moved into the IDFC First account in January 2025.
The CBI puts the net loss to the education parishad at Rs 50.54 crore. As Principal Secretary, Agriculture, he allegedly pushed an account with the same bank for the Marketing Board, which later saw a Rs 10-crore fraudulent debit. The chargesheet adds that Rishi paid for Mujra parties and hotel stays with escorts called from Delhi on his demand.
RK Singh: Ram Kumar Singh was Commissioner of the Municipal Corporation, Panchkula, and also supervised the Municipal Council, Kalka. The CBI says that on 17 October 2025 he marked a note asking staff to put up the file at once because the bank was offering 8.60 per cent, before any comparison was done. It says he turned out a section officer who had asked for quotations. He allegedly signed five cheques dated 31 October 2025, when the cheque book had not yet reached the department, and handed four more to a private person at his residence. At Kalka, he allegedly had the account opened at a Chandigarh branch 30 km away. The agency alleges that Rs 50 lakh was delivered to his house on 11 January 2026 and Rs 2 crore reached his son through hawala channels. The loss is put at Rs 100 crore for Panchkula and Rs 18.46 crore for Kalka.
Pardeep Kumar: The then HSPCB Member Secretary prepared the comparative rate chart in each of the six investment cycles. The CBI says that in March 2025 he entered the quote of Jana Small Finance Bank as 8.25 per cent, though the bank had offered 8.45 per cent. This put IDFC First on top. He had himself noted the Rs 50-crore cap in the first cycle but left it out of later notes. He accepted unsigned and unstamped quotations of IDFC First, and one that arrived a week after the deadline. He did not object when the bank’s exposure crossed Rs 163 crore.
These are the CBI’s allegations and are yet to be tested in court.
ThePrint reached Chief Secretary Anurag Rastogi through a WhatsApp message on his mobile phone for comment. This report will be updated once he replies.
Another senior officer in the Haryana government said there was nothing unusual in the Chief Secretary’s office asking for individual applications. He said the government may want to look at each case separately before giving its consent.
(Edited by Ajeet Tiwari)