Four arrests on a Tuesday
Published 3 October 2026
"Be it any bank official, government employee, or anyone else, stern action will be taken." That was Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini, on the floor of the Haryana Assembly, on the day the arrests began.
In the House
Saini's statements in the Assembly over two days set out the government's line. On Monday he told members the matter had been handed to the Anti-Corruption Bureau and the vigilance department. On Tuesday, 24 February, he said the state would find out whether any government employees were involved, and added that "if the bank is found responsible, strict action will be taken against the bank as well", noting that accountability would extend to all parties found guilty. He said the government had told IDFC First Bank to transfer the whole amount with interest to another empanelled bank. And he said the loss was primarily at the bank's Chandigarh branch and involved alleged collusion at the middle and lower levels.
The opposition asked for more. Leader of Opposition Bhupinder Singh Hooda and the state Congress chief, Rao Narender Singh, demanded a CBI probe. The CBI would take the case on 8 April, at the state's own request.
The FIR
An FIR had been registered on 23 February at the State Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau's police station in Panchkula, under Section 13(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act and six sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita: criminal breach of trust, cheating, forgery, forgery of valuable security, use of forged documents and criminal conspiracy. The Hindu BusinessLine listed the sections: 316(5), 318(4), 336(3), 338, 340(2) and 61(2). It was built on the department committee's findings, which is why the document reads partly like an inquiry report.
Four names
That evening, the bureau arrested four people. DG A S Chawla named them in Panchkula as Ribhav Rishi, Abhay Kumar, Swati Singla and Abhishek Singla. Rishi and Kumar, former employees of the bank, were described as the alleged "masterminds". The Singlas were the partners in the firm that, in the bureau's account, received a substantial share of the money. A look-out circular had been issued against Rishi to stop him leaving the country. The investigation was put under a Special Investigation Team supervised by IPS officer Ganga Ram Punia, and the bureau said it was hiring chartered accountants to follow the trail.
Chawla's numbers that day were early ones, and he said so. Swastik Desh Project, he said, received nearly Rs 300 crore, more than half of the total fraud amount. The ED would later put Swastik's receipts at Rs 203.50 crore. The distance between the two is not a contradiction so much as the distance between an investigator's first week and his fifth month.
The gap he explained
A reporter asked about the difference between the Rs 556 crore recovered and the Rs 590 crore involved. Chawla's answer was that the remainder may include smaller accounts, possibly linked to the Chandigarh administration. It was a guess, offered as one. It also turned out to be a good one: the Chandigarh bodies' accounts would produce their own FIRs within three weeks.
Asked whether any Haryana government officials were under scrutiny, Chawla said the investigation was at an initial stage and it would be inappropriate to comment. Six weeks later two IAS officers were suspended. Within four months, three were in custody. That history is for later chapters.
The odd geography
One other remark of the DG's explains why the case was built the way it was. He said it was surprising that the IDFC First Bank branch is in Chandigarh while the Haryana government departments are in state territory, and the AU Small Finance Bank branch to which money was transferred is in Mohali. Three jurisdictions, three police forces and two banks. A fraud that crosses borders tends to lose a week or two to jurisdiction. This one lost a day: the bureau registered the case in Haryana because the money belonged to Haryana, not because the bank was there.
The next three weeks were the follow-the-money phase. The ED arrived.
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