New Delhi: Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer Pardeep Kumar, who is under the scanner for his alleged role in the Rs 590-crore IDFC scam, is on the run, ThePrint has learnt. Kumar’s phone has been switched off, and he has been missing from his residence for the past three days.
It is learnt that a team of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had gone to his residence to arrest him but he was not at home.
Calls to Kumar’s residence went unanswered.
Kumar was serving as director, state transport, and special secretary in the transport department when he was suspended on 8 April this year after his alleged involvement in the scam came to light.
The scam surfaced in February, when Haryana’s panchayat department sought to close its account and transfer the balance to another bank, only to discover a massive discrepancy between the amount reflected in official records and the actual balance available in the account.
The Haryana Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau initially registered a case. However, given the scale of the alleged fraud, the investigation was later transferred to the CBI.
So far, 19 people, including government officials, have been arrested, while several others have been suspended as part of the ongoing probe.
Who is Pardeep Kumar
Kumar is a 2011-batch Haryana Civil Services-promoted IAS officer. He is due to retire on superannuation on 30 June, which is just four days away.
His most significant posting for the purposes of the current investigation was as member secretary of the Haryana State Pollution Control Board, a charge he held from August 2022 to December 2025.
The pollution control board account held at IDFC First Bank’s Sector 32 branch in Chandigarh accounts for the highest single-department loss in the entire scam, Rs 169 crore, which investigators say was routed through shell entities connected to the accused bank officials.
The CBI has already taken sanction under Section 17-A of the Prevention of Corruption Act to investigate Kumar’s role.
Vineet Garg, a 1991-batch IAS officer currently serving as additional chief secretary in the printing and stationery department, was chairman of the Haryana State Pollution Control Board when the funds were deposited in the IDFC First Bank. The CBI has taken Section 17-A sanction for Garg as well, making him one of the most senior IAS officers under the scanner in the case.
Larger scam and arrests
The fraud spans eight Haryana government departments and two Chandigarh administration bodies. The CBI has put the total loss at Rs 657 crore; the Enforcement Directorate, which is running a parallel probe under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, has pegged it at Rs 645 crore.
Two Haryana IAS officers have been arrested so far. Ram Kumar Singh, a 2012-batch officer promoted from the HCS, was arrested on 18 June in connection with the Rs 79.46 crore siphoned from the Panchkula Municipal Corporation account.
The CBI says he handed over multiple signed cheques to bank officials under the pretext of opening fixed deposits; no FDs were ever created and the money went to shell entities.
Pankaj Aggarwal, arrested on June 22, was principal secretary of the school education and agriculture departments when accounts of the Haryana School Shiksha Pariyojana Parishad and the Haryana State Agriculture Marketing Board were opened in violation of finance department guidelines. The loss attributed to these two departments is Rs 60.54 crore.
In the Chandigarh cases, Navneet Kumar Srivastava, a senior AGMUT cadre Indian Forest Service officer, has been arrested in connection with the CREST (Chandigarh Renewable Energy and Science and Technology Promotion Society) fraud, which allegedly occurred during his tenure as CEO.
In all, eight IAS officers are under the CBI scanner: Vineet Garg (1991 batch), Pankaj Aggarwal (2000 batch), Mohammed Shayin (2002 batch), Saket Kumar (2005 batch), D.K. Behera (2007 batch), Mani Ram Sharma (2009 batch), Pardeep Kumar (2011 batch), and Ram Kumar Singh (2012 batch). Of these, Aggarwal and Singh have been arrested while Kumar is missing.
The CBI has chargesheeted 17 in the Haryana leg of the case: six officials of IDFC First Bank and AU Small Finance Bank, three government servants, two companies and six private persons. The chargesheet against IAS officers is yet to be filed.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
Also Read: IDFC fraud wasn’t Rs 570 cr. ED probe reveals Rs 645 cr were siphoned from Haryana govt accounts