The CBI arrives
Published 3 October 2026
On the same day the Central Bureau of Investigation took the case, the Haryana government suspended two of its own IAS officers. The timing was probably not a coincidence, and the sources do not say.
Wednesday, 8 April, and Thursday, 9 April
The CBI's Economic Offences Wing registered a fresh FIR on the basis of the one the state vigilance bureau had registered on 23 February. The Indian Express reported that the FIR was registered on Thursday, 9 April under Section 13(2) read with 13(1)(a) of the Prevention of Corruption Act and the same six Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita sections, with the investigation entrusted to an ASP of the agency's EO-III branch in New Delhi. ThePrint and The Tribune date the FIR to 8 April; this file uses 8 April for registration and 9 April for the public announcement.
The CBI's own statement described the case as one of "serious allegation of misappropriation of government funds... a large scale, organized and multi-layered fraud pertaining to banking operations and entities, allegedly undertaken in a systematic manner to siphon off government funds into the accounts of shell firms". It named Swastik Desh Project, SRR Planning Gurus, Cap Co Fintech Services and R.S. Traders, and estimated the loss to the public exchequer at more than Rs 550 crore. That figure, a third in this file after Rs 590 crore and Rs 645.59 crore, is dealt with in the chapter on the numbers.
Two suspensions
The Haryana government suspended two IAS officers, R K Singh and Pradeep Kumar, after their alleged role surfaced in the ongoing investigation. The Indian Express later dated the suspensions to 8 April and described both as HCS officers promoted to the IAS. Kumar had been Member Secretary of the Haryana State Pollution Control Board when the alleged misappropriation took place, and the board was the largest single loser. Singh's name would later be tied by the CBI to the Municipal Corporation, Panchkula. Both would be arrested before the summer was out.
The state's action in suspending its own senior officers is a point on the record for those who think Haryana was reluctant. Sanction for the CBI to proceed against five IAS officers followed on 16 May. ThePrint, reporting on a different matter, had noted that earlier this year at least eight IAS officers had skirted legal trouble as the Haryana government refused the CBI sanction to prosecute them. Sanction is a recurring theme and a later chapter returns to it.
The quarter
Two weeks later, IDFC First Bank reported its results for the quarter ended 31 March. Net profit was Rs 319 crore, against Rs 304 crore a year earlier, a rise of about 5 per cent, with provisions of Rs 869 crore against Rs 1,451 crore. But operating profit fell 42 per cent, to Rs 1,059 crore from Rs 1,812 crore, because the bank recognised the entire amount involved in the fraud as an expense in the quarter. Net interest margin for the quarter was 5.95 per cent. Other income also fell on a Rs 274 crore loss on the sale of equity shares in a stressed power company, a line item unrelated to Chandigarh.
The bank's June statement confirmed the accounting: it had paid the amount and interest to the departments and recognised the same in the books of accounts in Q4 FY26. It had, in other words, taken the whole hit up front, and with it the claim to be a creditor of the people it says defrauded it. Gross advances grew 20 per cent to Rs 2.84 lakh crore and gross NPAs fell 26 basis points to 1.61 per cent.
It was a profitable quarter that contained a very large write-off, and the bank said so in the filing. The recoveries it expected from lien-marking and legal action had not yet been counted.
A bank that is also a victim
By April the shape of the legal position was set. The bank was paying the departments, absorbing the loss, assisting the agencies and, at the same time, appearing in the agencies' documents as the employer of people accused of the fraud and the operator of the branch it took place in. The CBI's FIR named bank officials as accused. The bank described itself as a victim. Both statements can be true in law, and the point would eventually go to a court: in September, per The Statesman, the bank told a CBI court it is a victim, and by the start of October it had asked the Special CBI Court in Panchkula to treat it as one. That ruling is pending.
In the month that followed, two things happened. The CBI began to name officers. And the numbers began to be argued.
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