Panchkula, June 23: A major crackdown on administrative malpractice resulted in the late-night arrest of senior IAS officer Pankaj Agarwal by federal investigators tracking a Rs 657 crore financial fraud. The 2000-batch bureaucrat is accused of utilizing his administrative positions to facilitate unauthorized banking transactions across multiple state departments.
The multi-agency probe highlights a sophisticated network where banking personnel from AU Small Finance Bank and IDFC First Bank allegedly cooperated with government elites. Together, they systematically depleted the treasury reserves of ten distinct government entities spanning Chandigarh and Haryana.
The enforcement agencies are currently harmonizing their findings, as the Enforcement Directorate’s parallel inquiry lists the total siphoned capital at Rs 645 crore. The expanding dragnet has put eight top-tier bureaucrats under close observation, with Agarwal’s detention marking the second successful arrest in the operation.
Initial findings indicate that Agarwal’s involvement spans across two major departments where he served as Administrative Secretary. In the school education division, over Rs 50 crore vanished from the institutional accounts of the Haryana School Shiksha Pariyojana Parishad.
A CBI source affirmed, “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.”
Parallel discrepancies were traced to the Agriculture Marketing Development Fund, which saw an illegal outward transfer of Rs 10 crore from its Chandigarh-based branch. The capital was routed through businesses set up solely to obfuscate the origin of the money.
An official tracking the transactions maintained, “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.”
The central agency continues to examine the procedural approvals granted during this period. Questioning is expected to intensify for the remaining six IAS officers linked to the management of these departmental accounts.
