A Panchkula court on Friday sent Haryana IAS officer Ram Kumar Singh to three-day CBI custody in Rs 657 crore bank scam.He was arrested on Thursday for his alleged involvement in siphoning off funds amounting to over Rs 79 crore from a bank account of Municipal Corporation, Panchkula, in the IDFC First Bank in Sector 32, Chandigarh.The Rs 657 crore scam involved officials of IDFC First Bank and AU Small Finance Bank, who colluded with government officials, including IAS officers, to siphon off funds from the bank accounts of eight Haryana government departments and two Chandigarh Administration departments. While the CBI has put the quantum of loss at Rs 657 crore, the Enforcement Directorate (ED), which is also investigating the scam, claims a loss of Rs 645 crore.Who is Ram Kumar SinghRam Kumar Singh is a 2012 batch IAS officer. He was promoted to the IAS service from the Haryana Civil Services (HCS). After his name cropped up in the scam, the Haryana government suspended him on April 8, along with another IAS officer, Pardeep Kumar of the 2011 batch, who was also allegedly involved.Ram Kumar Singh served as Commissioner, Municipal Corporation (MC), Panchkula, from October 26, 2020, to May 12, 2021, and then again from July 10, 2025, to January 28, 2026. According to the CBI, in the MC Panchkula case, Rs 79.46 crore was siphoned off from the IDFC First Bank account in Sector 32, Chandigarh.The CBI said that MC Panchkula’s account in the IDFC First Bank was opened in violation of the extant guidelines of the Haryana government’s Finance Department. “The particulars recorded in the account opening form were entered in a manner designed to conceal the fraudulent transactions intended to be carried out subsequently. Pursuant to an understanding with the accused officials of IDFC First Bank,  RK Singh, IAS, Commissioner, MC Panchkula, handed over multiple signed cheques to the bank officials through middlemen under the garb of opening Fixed Deposits. The funds were debited using these cheques, and no Fixed Deposits were ever created. The debited amounts were diverted to shell entities controlled and operated by the accused bank officials,” claimed the CBI.Residences of RK Singh in Chandigarh and Karnal (Haryana) were also searched, and several incriminating documents were recovered, the CBI claimed.The agency added that “the misappropriation was carried out with the knowledge and active participation of the then Commissioner and the Senior Accountant of MC Panchkula.” Earlier, the CBI had arrested Senior Accountant Surinder Jain in the case.As per the CBI, fraud at MC Panchkula formed part of a larger scam at the IDFC First Bank in which funds amounting to Rs 504 crore from eight Haryana government departments were siphoned off through forged or non-existent Fixed Deposits or debit notes and routed to shell entities.Besides RK Singh and Pardeep Kumar, the Haryana government had earlier granted permission to investigate the role of six more IAS officers in the scam – Mohd Shayin, Pankaj Agarwal, DK Behera, Mani Ram Sharma, Vineet Garg, and Saket Kumar under Section 17 A of the Prevention of Corruption Act. Out of these IAS officers, the premises of Shayin, Agarwal, and Pardeep Kumar were raided on June 6.So far, 15 people and three shell entities have been chargesheeted in the case related to the Haryana government accounts before a Panchkula court. The chargesheet against IAS officers is yet to be submitted.Fraud in ChandigarhBesides, the CBI is investigating two more cases: one pertaining to the siphoning of funds from the Chandigarh Smart City Limited (CSCL)’s bank account and another pertaining to misappropriation from the Chandigarh Renewable Energy and Science & Technology Promotion Society (CREST)’s account. The CBI claims that the quantum of fraud in these two cases is Rs 153 crore.In the CSCL case, the CBI has chargesheeted five bankers, a CSCL official, and another person. In the CREST case, the agency has submitted a chargesheet against five bankers, two CREST officials, four other people, and two firms. Further, one senior Indian Forest Service officer, Navneet Srivastava, was earlier arrested in the CREST case.