ThePrint ·
CREST-IDFC First fraud case: CBI chargesheet says IFoS officer’s wife used Rs 80L to buy Goa property
Agency's latest chargesheet names suspended Indian Forest Service officer, his wife and the company that she runs which allegedly received Rs 95 lakh of the diverted funds.
Gurugram: The CBI has named the wife of suspended Indian Forest Service (IFoS) officer Navneet Srivastava in its chargesheet in the Rs 75.4-crore fraud case involving the Chandigarh Renewable Energy and Science & Technology Promotion Society (CREST) and IDFC First Bank.
The probe agency’s fourth supplementary chargesheet, filed on 11 September, accuses Anupam Srivastava and a company she runs with her father of receiving Rs 95 lakh of the money allegedly diverted from CREST. It says that Rs 80 lakh was then used to purchase land in Goa in the company’s name.
The latest chargesheet names three accused—Srivastava; his wife, Anupam; and Vipam Consultancy Pvt Ltd, a company owned by Anupam and her father, Suresh Prasad Srivastava. The CBI has charged all three with criminal conspiracy, destruction of evidence, criminal breach of trust, cheating, forgery and use of forged documents under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, as well as bribery, criminal misconduct and abetment under the Prevention of Corruption Act.
According to the CBI, Vipam Consultancy was incorporated in March 2022, with Anupam and her father as its only directors. The chargesheet said that she holds a 95 percent stake in the company.
Investigators allege that the company had no genuine business dealings with CREST to explain the Rs 95 lakh credited to its HDFC Bank account from CAPCO Fintech Services. The CBI had accused CAPCO Fintech Services of receiving about Rs 18 crore from a CREST account through 96 transactions. These were among 144 unauthorised debits totalling about Rs 21 crore from the account.
According to the chargesheet, the amount was sent to Vipam Consultancy’s account through six transactions between 14 November 2024 and 14 February 2025. It says that Rs 80 lakh of the Rs 95 lakh was subsequently transferred through demand drafts to parties in Canacona, Goa, between July and August 2025. The payments were made towards agricultural and orchard land that is now registered in Vipam Consultancy’s name.
The agency alleged that Navneet, while heading CREST, conspired with others to divert the society’s funds and accepted illegal gratification by abusing his official position, with the payments delivered through cash couriers.
His wife and her company have been chargesheeted separately for allegedly abetting the offence and knowingly retaining money to which they had no legitimate claim.
The chargesheet also accuses Srivastava of deleting WhatsApp messages relating to the movement of funds and destroying a mobile phone that investigators say contained evidence.
The CREST case is one strand of a larger investigation into an alleged banking fraud at IDFC First Bank’s Sector 32 branch in Chandigarh. In the main case, the CBI has accused officials of siphoning off about Rs 504 crore belonging to eight Haryana government departments through forged fixed deposits and fraudulent debit transactions.
A related case involving the Chandigarh Smart City project and the Municipal Corporation concerns an alleged Rs 78-crore fraud and has resulted in seven accused being chargesheeted.
The CBI has already filed three chargesheets in the broader case, naming 37 accused in all, including six IAS officers of the Haryana cadre: Pardeep Kumar, then member secretary of the Haryana State Pollution Control Board (HSPCB); Ram Kumar Singh, then Panchkula commissioner; Pankaj Agarwal, then chairman of the Haryana State Agricultural Marketing Board; Mohammad Shayin, then managing director of Haryana Power Generation Corporation Ltd; Saket Kumar, then commissioner and secretary of the Development and Panchayats Department; and Vineet Garg, then chairman of the HSPCB.
In the CREST matter, which the CBI took over from the Chandigarh administration, 13 other accused had already been chargesheeted before the latest filing. The agency said the investigation continues to trace the remaining funds and identify any other beneficiaries.
The allegations in the chargesheet are yet to be proved in court.
ThePrint approached Anupam Srivastava by email for her response on the source of the Rs 95 lakh received by Vipam Consultancy, the company’s business dealings, if any, with CREST, the purchase of land in Goa, and the charges against her by the CBI. This report will be updated if and when she responds.
