What happened
On June 30, 2026, Haryana IAS officer Pardeep Kumar walked into his final day as Member Secretary of the Haryana State Pollution Control Board (HSPCB) and walked out in CBI custody. He is the third IAS officer arrested in the Rs 657-crore bank fraud that hit eight Haryana government departments and two Chandigarh Administration departments — and his department alone accounts for the single largest loss, Rs 169 crore, siphoned from an IDFC First Bank account in Chandigarh's Sector 32. The CBI's own filing states there is 'no record' in HSPCB explaining why the account was ever opened, on February 27, 2025, or why board funds were parked there without approval from senior officers at all. Investigators say Kumar had been dodging the probe for weeks and was traced down and arrested only once his retirement clock ran out, making him the rare government employee whose service record and charge sheet were finalised on the same date.