Project Ultra
Published 3 October 2026
On Friday, 5 June, IDFC First Bank told the stock exchanges what its forensic auditors had found. The headline was one word: isolated.
What KPMG said
The bank filed a note describing the forensic review, which it said was code-named "Project Ultra". The findings, as reported by Mint: the fraud was an isolated incident at the Chandigarh branch, limited to the government-linked accounts, with no evidence of wider impact on the bank's systems or other customers. The net principal amount was around Rs 646 crore, in line with the bank's earlier disclosures. The bank said it had already paid that amount with interest to the departments, and booked it in the fourth quarter of FY26. The bank's own filing and a firm it hired to examine it reached the same conclusion, which is both what a reader would expect and a reason to read the CBI's own papers alongside it.
Friday, 12 June
The CBI filed a second chargesheet on Friday, 12 June. The Indian Express reported the case now widening into the beneficiaries' side of the chain. The filing brought the number of people chargesheeted to 17. The HSPCB, the Pollution Control Board, remained the largest single loser at Rs 169.27 crore in the ED's department-wise list.
Tuesday, 23 June
On 23 June the CBI arrested IAS officer Pankaj Agarwal. The New Indian Express reported that the agency arrested the Haryana-cadre IAS officer in the Rs 504 crore case. The Indian Express's chargesheet reporting said that the accounts of the school education project council and the agricultural marketing board were opened during his tenure in violation of Finance Department guidelines. That is the agency's allegation. Agarwal's response is not carried in the sources reviewed. An arrest is an allegation put to a court.
Tuesday, 30 June
A week later, the CBI arrested a second IAS officer. The Indian Express headline gave the detail that has been quoted since: it was the day of his superannuation. Pradeep Kumar, the 2011-batch HCS officer promoted to IAS, had been Member Secretary of the Pollution Control Board when the funds went, and he was due to retire that day. The agency took him into custody before the retirement could take effect in the ordinary course.
The detail is worth a sentence of comment, because it cuts two ways. For the agency, an arrest on the last day of service stops an officer leaving office with pension and status intact before a case is made. For the officer, it is a day of ceremony turned into custody, and he, like everyone else in this file, is presumed innocent.
By the end of June, two IAS officers were in custody, a third, R K Singh, had been remanded earlier, and the second chargesheet had taken the number charged to 17. The ED's turn came next.
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