CBI recommends prosecution of 37 in Haryana funds fraud case

The CBI has recommended prosecution of 37 accused persons, while keeping the investigation open into the role of other government officials and private persons.

A supplementary charge-sheet filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) before the Special Judge, CBI, Panchkula, has alleged a sprawling nexus involving bank officials, Haryana government functionaries, intermediaries and private entities in the alleged diversion and misappropriation of government funds, with investigators uncovering evidence of allegedly fabricated bank accounts, forged cheques, manipulated investment comparisons, fake email addresses, false customer confirmations and alleged cash and other benefits to public servants. The supplementary final report runs 196 pages and contains further evidence against accused already charge sheeted as well as material against additional accused. The CBI has recommended prosecution of 37 accused persons, while keeping the investigation open into the role of other government officials, private persons and those allegedly involved in tracing and diverting the money trail. The investigation, according to the CBI, has uncovered a pattern in which government funds were allegedly first brought into bank accounts through manipulated documentation and investment decisions and were subsequently siphoned through allegedly forged instruments and compromised banking controls.

At the heart of the investigation is an account allegedly opened fraudulently in the name of the Haryana State Pollution Control Board (HSPCB) at the Sector-32 branch of IDFC First Bank. According to the chargesheet, account number 10219084990 was opened on February 27, 2025, purportedly for HSPCB. The CBI says the department subsequently denied having opened the account and investigators could not find corresponding official records authorising it. The agency has therefore alleged that the account was deliberately created as part of the larger conspiracy. The charge-sheet names Ribhav Rishi , Abhay Kumar and Shamim Ahmad Dar in connection with the opening and operation of the account.

The CBI’s findings attribute specific roles to them: Abhay Kumar allegedly acted as the lead generator, Shamim Dar as lead converter, while Ribhav Rishi allegedly approved the account opening. Investigators have also alleged deliberate manipulation of the account-opening documents. A mobile number initially associated with an authorised departmental official was allegedly struck off and replaced with 8699700253, which the CBI says was registered in the name of Abhishek Singla, described in the chargesheet as Abhay Kumar’s brother-in-law. The email address mentioned in the documents was also allegedly fictitious or designed to closely resemble the department’s genuine email address. The CBI says an alternate email account was created on February 25, 2025, shortly before the account was opened, with recovery information allegedly pointing towards Abhay Kumar. The alleged manipulation, according to investigators, had a specific purpose, to prevent genuine departmental officials from receiving bank communications and thereby allow the accused to maintain control over an account purportedly belonging to a government department.

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Further, the CBI has identified 47 fraudulent debit transactions totalling Rs 187.26 crore in the HSPCB account, apart from five credit transactions totalling approximately Rs 17.90 crore. The agency alleges that a series of cheques purportedly signed by Parveen Kumar, described as the department’s Senior Accounts Officer, were forged and subsequently used for RTGS and other transfers. The alleged fraud was not limited to the creation of the account. According to the CBI, bank employees subsequently acted as makers, authorisers and approvers of transactions despite the alleged irregularities in the instruments.

The investigation specifically examines the role of Sudha Goyal, Seema Dhiman, Anuj Kaushal, Kritish Sharma and Kuldeep Singh, among others, in processing and authorising the transactions. The CBI alleges that several forged cheques were processed even though the signatures were not genuine and that mandatory customer confirmations were recorded despite the alleged absence of genuine confirmation from the concerned government officials. The agency’s findings are significant because the bank’s own standard operating procedures required multiple safeguards for government accounts and high-value transactions, including KYC verification, scrutiny of account-opening documents, signature verification, ultraviolet verification of cheques, positive-pay checks, customer confirmation and multiple levels of approval. The CBI’s case is that these safeguards were either deliberately bypassed or manipulated.