Second IAS Officer Arrested in Haryana as Rs 60 Crore Funds Scam Unravels

The CBI crackdown on high-ranking bureaucrats continues after the arrest of Pankaj Aggarwal in a massive case involving siphoned state government funds.

The corridors of power in Chandigarh are under a cloud of scrutiny this week. Late Monday, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) arrested senior IAS officer Pankaj Aggarwal, marking the second such high-profile detention in Haryana within just seven days. Aggarwal, who previously served as the principal secretary of the state’s education and agriculture departments, now finds himself at the center of a deepening investigation into a Rs 60.5-crore swindle.

The charges against the officer are grave. Investigators allege that Aggarwal bypassed mandatory state finance department guidelines to authorize the opening of two accounts at an IDFC First Bank branch in Chandigarh’s Sector 32. According to the CBI, he did this despite explicit objections raised by his subordinates. Once the accounts were operational, massive sums were transferred beyond permissible limits and subsequently funneled through various shell entities, effectively draining the state exchequer.

This arrest follows a similar operation on June 17, when the CBI took former Panchkula municipal commissioner RK Singh into custody. Singh’s arrest was linked to the same investigative trail, pointing toward a coordinated pattern of misappropriation. While Singh remains in judicial custody, a local court has granted the agency a two-day remand for Aggarwal to facilitate custodial interrogation, with prosecutors insisting that his questioning is essential to corroborate incriminating evidence.

A Much Larger Web

What makes this case particularly alarming is the scale of the alleged operation. While the immediate charges involve a Rs 60.5-crore loss from the Haryana School Shiksha Pariyojna Parishad (HSSPP) and the Haryana State Agriculture Marketing Board (HSAMB), the CBI believes this is merely the tip of the iceberg. The agency is currently probing a much wider Rs 593-crore scam that allegedly spans eight different state departments, all utilizing the same bank branch to route the illicit funds. The investigation, which was moved from the State Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau to the CBI this April, appears to be widening its net as more files are scrutinized.

Why it matters

The systemic nature of this fraud raises uncomfortable questions about internal oversight and the ease with which administrative protocols can be overridden. When high-ranking officials allegedly ignore finance department mandates to facilitate the movement of large sums, it exposes a breakdown in the checks and balances designed to protect public money. For the Haryana government, this is more than just a legal headache; it is a reputational challenge that underscores the vulnerability of state funds to sophisticated "quid pro quo" arrangements. As the probe continues, the focus will likely shift to how these shell entities operated undetected for so long and whether the current arrests will lead to further action against other officials involved in the larger web of corruption.