Chandigarh: On 24 October 2025, Anil Kumar, a section officer in the accounts branch of the Panchkula Municipal Corporation, received a file proposing the opening of a savings account with IDFC First Bank. He followed the prescribed procedure, and wrote on the file that quotations should be invited from different banks for the savings account and fixed deposits to avoid litigation later.
The file then reached Municipal Commissioner Ram Kumar Singh, who, according to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), played an active role in the Rs 645-crore public funds embezzlement case involving IDFC First Bank and its Sector 32 branch in Chandigarh.
The CBI said Singh called Anil to his chamber and told him: “Bhai tu bahot jyada syana hai kya, tune kyu likhi ye line, jab mai bata raha hu FD rate higher hai?” (Are you too clever? Why did you write this line when I am telling you the FD rate is higher?) Anil replied that the rules required rates to be quoted first, following which Singh told him to leave the room.
About a fortnight later, on 11 November, Singh signed an order sending Anil back to his main posting in the Supplies and Disposal Directorate. He was told not to report to the corporation’s office. According to the CBI, the draft order was shared on WhatsApp by Naresh Kumar, a Haryana government employee with no role in the corporation, with Abhay Kumar, a former IDFC First Bank employee.
This episode is central to the CBI’s case against Singh in its supplementary chargesheet, which the agency filed on 2 September before the CBI Special Judge in Panchkula. The agency describes it as an overt act indicating intent rather than negligence.
Charges against IAS officer
Singh, a promoted IAS officer of the 2012 batch, was among 19 additional accused named in the CBI’s third and latest chargesheet in the case. He was also among six IAS officers for whom the agency sought sanction under Section 17A of the Prevention of Corruption Act before proceeding with the investigation. The others are Vineet Garg, Pankaj Agarwal, Mohammed Shayin, Saket Kumar and Pardeep Kumar. In all, the agency has named 37 individuals as accused in its chargesheets.
Singh served as commissioner of the Panchkula Municipal Corporation from July 2025 to January 2026, the period in which the alleged fraud took place. He also held charge as District Municipal Commissioner, with supervisory control over the Kalka Municipal Council.
He was arrested on 18 June this year and sent to judicial custody on 22 June.
The charges against him include criminal conspiracy, criminal breach of trust by a public servant, cheating, forgery of valuable security, using forged documents as genuine, falsification of accounts and destruction of evidence. The chargesheet also invokes bribery provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act. The CBI says he caused a wrongful loss of Rs 100 crore to the Panchkula corporation and Rs 18.46 crore to the Kalka council.
According to the CBI, Singh handed over multiple signed cheques to bank officials through middlemen, ostensibly for opening fixed deposits. The funds were debited using these cheques, but no fixed deposits were created. Instead, the agency alleges, the money was routed to shell entities controlled by the accused bank officials.
The CBI’s 2 September chargesheet deals with eight Haryana bodies whose funds were moved into accounts at IDFC First Bank and AU Small Finance Bank. The first chargesheet, filed on 21 May, named 13 accused and two shell companies. A supplementary report followed on 12 June.
The CBI says the alleged fraud followed a common seven-stage design. It began with false offers of high interest on fixed deposits, followed by accounts being opened in violation of Finance Department rules and funds being moved beyond prescribed limits. Red flags were ignored, after which forged statements and deposit receipts were created and favours allegedly extended to officials. The money was eventually converted into cash, gold and property, the agency says.
How ‘fraud’ was facilitated
The CBI chargesheet details exchanges between Singh and Abhay Kumar from October to December over the opening of a new account at IDFC First Bank’s Sector 32 branch in Chandigarh, despite Abhay no longer being a bank employee.
According to the CBI, senior IDFC bank officials detected irregular transactions in government accounts in April and May 2025, following which Abhay was terminated on 10 June 2025. Ribhav Rishi, then branch manager of the Sector 32 branch, also had to resign.
Months afterwards on 14 October, Saurav Sharma of the Haryana State Pollution Control Board messaged Abhay on WhatsApp to arrange a meeting with Surinder Jain, the senior accounts officer. Sharma told him Jain would be at the board until lunch and at the Municipal Corporation after 2 pm. According to the CBI, Jain had asked Saurav three times when the banker was coming.
Abhay arrived at Sector 14, Panchkula, on 17 October, after which Jain took him to Singh’s chamber. The CBI points out that there was nothing pending before the corporation that could explain the visit.
At 2:10 pm, Abhay sent Singh a WhatsApp message saying, “Good afternoon Sir, Please find the attachment.” He signed off as “Relationship Manager, IDFC First Bank”, despite no longer holding the post.
Around the same time, Seema Dhiman, then banker authoriser at IDFC’s Sector 32 branch, emailed the corporation offering an 8.60 percent interest rate on fixed deposits of Rs 2 crore to Rs 100 crore for one year. The email began, “As discussed with bank officials” referring to the discussion with Abhay, according to the CBI.
Singh marked the email for the senior accounts officer and wrote: “SAO to put up immediately since the bank is giving 8.60 percent interest.”
Rates that kept changing
On 18 October, Abhay sent Jain a banking proposal dated 17 October offering a 8.60 percent interest rate. On 23 October, he submitted another proposal at Singh’s personal assistant’s office, this time offering 7.50 percent. That day, he wrote to Jain: “Have submitted both the proposals at PA office.”
The CBI says the second proposal was for the Kalka council. The two proposals were assigned inward numbers 12240 and 12241, respectively.
The episode involving Anil Kumar followed. The CBI cites it as evidence that Singh was actively facilitating the fraud.
The savings account at IDFC’s Sector 32 branch was opened on 29 October, the CBI says. The letter inviting quotations from banks, however, was sent only the next day, on 30 October, with a deadline of 31 October. Singh signed the letter. Most banks received it on the cut-off day, with some receiving it after working hours.
No letter was sent to IDFC’s Sector 32 branch. On 30 October, Abhay told Jain that any letter should be sent to him on WhatsApp. Otherwise, he wrote, “other people get involved.”
IDFC’s Sector 32 branch submitted its quote on 31 October, offering 7.60 percent—the last of 15 quotations received by the corporation. It was sent from Abhay’s personal Gmail account.
The CBI says the 7.60 percent figure was not random, noting that the highest earlier bid was 7.45 percent, from Jana Small Finance Bank.
IDFC’s Sector 11 branch, where the corporation already had a savings account, also submitted a quote through an official bank email, offering 6.45 percent interest—the real rate. The bank’s rate card for the period offered 6.85 percent interest on non-callable deposits of 271 to 365 days and 6.45 percent on callable deposits.
The CBI says Singh knew these figures because they were on his file but did not act on the discrepancy.
On 31 October, the quotations were evaluated and approved. Singh signed letters asking Bandhan Bank to break fixed deposits and transfer Rs 77.42 crore, and AU Small Finance Bank to do the same with Rs 25 crore.
The two letters carried dispatch numbers 1104 and 1105, while the letter to IDFC for the new deposits was numbered 1158. The CBI flagged the sequence, saying it indicated that instructions to move the funds had been issued before the formal evaluation and approval of the quotations was complete.
An official of IDFC’s Sector 11 branch had urged Jain to keep the money with that branch, about a kilometre from the corporation’s office. Jain told him, according to the chargesheet, that the Sector 32 account had been opened on the commissioner’s orders.
Between 3 and 4 November, more than Rs 102 crore reached the new Sector 32 account.
Cheques with false date
The corporation issued five cheques to IDFC to open fixed deposits, each dated 31 October 2025. Three were for Rs 20 crore and two for Rs 10 crore, totalling Rs 80 crore. “For FDR” was written on the back of each. Singh and Jain signed them.
The CBI says the dates were false because the cheque book for the new account was delivered only on 3 November and the first credit to the account also came the same day.
The agency says the cheques were not required to create fixed deposits in the first place. A government body could open an FD through a letter alone, and Singh knew this, it alleges. At Kalka, where he held additional charge, no cheque had previously been given for an FD. At Panchkula, deposits with Bandhan Bank and AU Small Finance Bank in July 2025 had also been made through letters.
The CBI says the cheques were required because IDFC had tightened its controls from May 2025 and any transfer of more than Rs 10 crore without a cheque required approval from the bank’s country head. Bank officials therefore could not safely move Rs 100 crore through debit notes and needed signed cheques from the corporation.
Text records show that on 19 November, Naresh Kumar pressed Abhay to collect the cheque book from Jain. Abhay replied that “sir” had not signed and wanted the fixed deposits first. The CBI interprets this as Singh demanding the deposit receipts before releasing the cheques, reversing the normal sequence. At 4:16 pm that day, Abhay sent Naresh a photo of the five cheques.
The chargesheet says Jain also shared the Aadhaar cards of himself and his wife with Abhay that day for a Goa trip.
Forged deposits, and one word that changed
After more than Rs 102 crore was deposited into the new account, the corporation received five fixed deposit receipts for Rs 80 crore, dated 4 November.
The CBI says no such deposits were ever created. It also points out that the receipts carried a date nearly a fortnight before Jain handed over the cheques, which it describes as impossible on the face of the documents.
On 24 November, Abhay sent Naresh soft copies of the receipts on WhatsApp. At 9:46 pm, Naresh wrote that he was sitting with Singh. The CBI says he also sent photographs of a table with food and drinks. The same table was later recovered during a search at Singh’s house.
The soft copy described the mode of operation of the account as “Singly”, while the hard copy placed on the corporation’s file said “Jointly”. The CBI says the change indicates that Singh saw the receipts in draft, had them corrected and then placed them on the file knowing they were fabricated.
Cheques at his residence
By the end of November, the CBI says, money had begun moving out of the corporation’s IDFC account—Rs 10 crore went to the Development and Panchayats Department’s account on 27 November. Another Rs 10 crore went to Durga Foods and RK Enterprises on 29 November. Naresh, the chargesheet says, received Rs 20 lakh in two bank accounts.
By 24 December, Rs 100 crore had been debited from the corporation’s account through 22 transactions. The beneficiaries included Swastik Desh Projects, Durga Foods, Tirupati Foods, Jhimjham Enterprises and SRR Planning Gurus Pvt Ltd.
The mismatch between the deposit dates and the debits had by then been flagged. A corporation note dated 17 December raised the issue. The bank replied on 19 December, attributing it to a technical error.
On 23 December, Singh approved breaking the five deposits and creating fresh ones. The letter this time carried four cheques.
On 24 December, Naresh was at Singh’s house. The CBI says he collected four Rs 20-crore cheques from there and sent photographs of the house and cheques to Abhay. Abhay replied, “Kya baat hai” and “Maza aa gaya” (That’s fantastic; I am thrilled).
One of the four cheques was used the same day to transfer Rs 20 crore. Three of Singh’s signed cheques remain missing.
On 9 January 2026, an accounts clerk at the corporation compared the bank statement emailed by IDFC with one supplied by Abhay by hand. The two did not match. She gave both to Jain, but the CBI says he took no action.
On 12 January, the corporation put up another note saying IDFC had been slow in crediting interest and its service was poor. It proposed closing the savings account at Sector 32 while keeping the fixed deposits at the same branch. Singh approved it.
The CBI says the note was intended to prevent the deposits from being shifted to Sector 11, which would have revealed that they did not exist.
Kalka, with the same cast
The same bank, branch, former banker and middleman were involved in the Kalka council’s transactions around the same time.
Kalka already had eight accounts holding Rs 42.07 crore by 30 September 2025. No file recorded a need for another account. On 23 October, the CBI says, Abhay handed an IDFC First Bank proposal to Singh’s personal assistant.
Singh wrote “EO Kalka to put up” on it and handed it to Kalka executive officer Jarnail Singh at his Panchkula office. He directed that the account be opened at the Sector 32 branch in Chandigarh, about 30 km away, despite a nearer branch being available. Jarnail Singh told the CBI he processed the note under pressure from the district commissioner.
It was the first time Kalka was creating fixed deposits.
By 17 November, Rs 30 crore had moved into the new account, including Rs 18 crore from IndusInd Bank, which tried to stop the transfer. Four FDs worth Rs 11.76 crore were created at the real rate of 6.3 percent, but forged FD receipts showed a rate of 7.6 percent.
On 20 January, Rs 18.46 crore was moved out through an internal ledger account, so no SMS alert was generated. The money went to four private entities. The cheque used carried forged signatures of the executive officer and accounts officer.
When the Kalka accounts officer and accountant went to the branch the next day, Seema Dhiman, the banker authoriser, told them an audit was underway. The CBI says it found no audit that day.
The CBI says Singh kept the accounts officer reassured month after month.
Cash movement
The CBI says the cash movement took place in two parts. The first was on Sunday, 11 January 2026, the day before the note approving retention of the deposits at Sector 32.
Ribhav Rishi, the former branch manager, told a delivery man, Rahul, to collect Rs 50 lakh from his house in Sector 20. Rahul was in Ambala and sent Amritpal Singh, who collected the cash and took it to a house in Sector 19, Chandigarh.
Rahul sent him the address and mobile number of the recipient. The CBI says both belonged to Singh. Rahul’s phone called Singh’s number at 6:59 pm for 43 seconds. Amritpal Singh’s phone was in Sector 19 at 7:15 pm and again at 8:04 pm.
The second payment happened on 22 January, two days after the Kalka money was transferred—Rs 2 crore was collected in Chandigarh and Mohali and handed to Lalit, a hawala operator at Burail. Lalit passed instructions to three associates in Delhi’s Kucha Ghasi Ram, Chandni Chowk—Vishal Patel, Jayesh Patel and Haresh Patel. The recipient was to be identified using a Rs 10 note whose serial number had been provided in advance.
A delivery in Gurugram could not be arranged, so the cash was handed over in Delhi in three tranches, near Old Rajinder Nagar metro station and at Haresh Patel’s shop. The CBI says Singh’s son, Prashant, collected the money with his friend Rajinder Singh Bains.
Vishal Patel kept a slip on which the recipient wrote “Received”. Haresh Patel kept another receipt bearing the name Prashant and a mobile number which the CBI says is registered under Prashant’s name. The slips were seized in July.
The agency says the case against Singh cannot be viewed act by act. It treats the Panchkula and Kalka dealings as parts of a single transaction.
The private proposal brought to him, the removal of the officer who sought competitive quotations, the cheques carrying false dates, the cheques handed over at his residence and the 12 January note are, according to the CBI, acts in preparation for and furtherance of the alleged misappropriation. The charges against Singh include conspiracy and taking undue advantage.
Singh’s side does not appear in the chargesheet.
The fraud came to light in February 2026. A committee set up by the Director of the Development and Panchayats Department examined mismatches in the department’s IDFC First Bank account. Its report, dated 11 February, referred to forged statements and cheques whose signatures appeared not to match. One cheque showed Rs 2.5 crore in figures but Rs 25 crore in words. The bank had honoured it.
The State Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau in Panchkula registered an FIR on 22 February against unknown bank officials. The Haryana government and the Centre handed the case to the CBI in March and April, respectively. The CBI re-registered the case on 8 April.
(Edited by Chingkheinganbi Mayengbam)