After Haryana, Rs 116-cr IDFC fraud comes to fore in Chandigarh MC

An alleged scam of over Rs 116 crore involving funds of Chandigarh Smart City Ltd (CSCL) and the Municipal Corporation has come to light. Following the revelation, the city police registered an FIR against missing MC employee Anubhav Mishra, an outsourced accountant, and Ribhav Rishi, former branch manager of IDFC First Bank, Sector 32, along with other bank officials.

The FIR was registered on a complaint by the accounts officer of the corporation seeking action over suspected financial bungling in various bank accounts of the CSCL and the MC maintained at the IDFC First Bank’s Sector 32 branch.

The complaint stated that certain news reports in leading newspapers had highlighted financial irregularities relating to Haryana Government funds deposited with IDFC First Bank and AU Small Finance Bank.

Taking cognisance of the development, the MC took up the matter with the bank concerned for the withdrawal or transfer of funds. The CSCL project had been closed in March 2025 and its assets, records and financial matters were transferred to the corporation. The CSCL had maintained multiple accounts in IDFC First Bank. During the process of closure and transfer of funds to MC, a dedicated account was opened in IDFC First Bank for consolidation of the CSCL funds.

As per the records handed over to the MC, all funds held by the CSCL in different bank accounts were to be transferred into this account to meet expenses related to the smart city project.

Following developments in Haryana, the MC approached IDFC First Bank, seeking encashment of FDRs provided by Mishra, who was the custodian of the FDRs, bank statements and records of CSCL funds, and transfer of the entire balance along with interest to MC’s PNB account.

However, the bank verbally informed the MC that the FDRs were not appearing in the bank’s system and were allegedly fake. These FDRs were reportedly issued by Ribhav Rishi, then branch manager, during March-April 2025. A preliminary scrutiny and cross-verification of the bank statements last month revealed several anomalies.

The statements provided at the time of handing over the charge in March-April 2025 did not match with the original statements obtained later. Several debit and credit entries in the earlier statements appeared suspicious and possibly fake.

The fixed deposits amounting to around Rs 116.84 crore, which were shown as active assets in the records handed over to the MC, were found missing in the bank statements obtained from the bank on February 24, 2026.

On February 25, the regional head and cluster head of IDFC First Bank met senior MC officials and informed them that the bank statement dated April 22, 2025, and the FDRs appeared to be fake.

At the time of handing over the charge of the smart city project to the MC in March 2025, a committee had been constituted to take over all files and financial records. One of the committee members, Mishra, who worked as an outsourced accountant, was actively involved in the process. It was observed that Mishra had not attended office ever since he dealt with files related to the withdrawal of the FDRs.

In view of these facts, the complaint stated that there was a strong possibility of involvement of Mishra in connivance with bank officials in the matter. The involvement of officials of the CSCL could not be ruled out either, it said.