Panchkula, June 23: The Central Bureau of Investigation has apprehended Pankaj Agarwal, a 2000-batch IAS officer, in connection with a massive banking scam involving hundreds of crores. Agency sources confirmed the arrest took place on Monday night, making him the second senior bureaucrat detained in this ongoing investigation following the earlier arrest of Ram Kumar Singh.
The complex financial probe focuses on the illicit diversion of state funds from eight Haryana government departments and two Chandigarh Administration accounts. Investigators revealed that the scheme relied on collusion between institutional officials at IDFC First Bank and AU Small Finance Bank and high-ranking state administrators to systematically siphoning off public resources.
While the Central Bureau of Investigation estimates the total exchequer loss at Rs 657 crore, the Enforcement Directorate maintains an independent calculation placing the deficit at Rs 645 crore. The scrutiny currently extends to a total of eight IAS officers, with six others—Mohd Shayin, Mani Ram Sharma, Pardeep Kumar, Vineet Garg, Saket Kumar, and DK Behera—remaining under active investigation.
The specific allegations against Agarwal center on his administrative oversight during his leadership of key state portfolios. During his tenure as the Administrative Secretary of the Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare Department, Rs 10 crore was illicitly transferred out of the Haryana State Agriculture Marketing Board’s account at an IDFC First Bank branch in Chandigarh.
A senior investigation official asserted, “The account was maintained in the name of Agriculture Marketing Development Fund. A total of Rs 9.75 crore was transferred to SRR Planning Gurus Limited and Rs 25 lakh went to Mannat Contractors. Both are shell firms and were floated to siphon off government funds.”
Further checking revealed additional financial discrepancies within the state’s educational budget during Agarwal’s concurrent oversight of the school education department. More than Rs 50 crore was found to be missing from the accounts of the Haryana School Shiksha Pariyojana Parishad.
An agency representative declared, “Both the accounts of Haryana School Shiksha Pariyojana Parishad and Haryana Agriculture Marketing Board were opened during Agarwal’s tenure and in violation of the Finance Department guidelines.”
