Panchkula, June 19 -- The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Thursday arrested IAS officer Ram Kumar Singh, the then Panchkula municipal corporation (MC) commissioner, for his alleged role in the misappropriation of Rs.79 crores from the civic body's account maintained with the IDFC First Bank's branch in Sector 32, Chandigarh. The CBI alleged that Singh played a crucial role in facilitating the diversion of government funds by handing over multiple signed cheques to bank officials through middlemen under the pretext of creating fixed deposits. However, no fixed deposits were created and the funds were allegedly siphoned off to shell entities controlled by the accused bank officials. According to the agency, the Panchkula MC account was opened in violation of Haryana government finance department guidelines, and details in the account-opening documents were allegedly recorded in a manner intended to conceal the fraudulent transactions that followed. The CBI stated that the misappropriation was carried out with the knowledge and active participation of the then commissioner and the senior accountant of Panchkula MC, who has already been arrested in the case. Based on evidence gathered during the investigation, the agency arrested Singh on Thursday and conducted searches at his residences in Chandigarh and Karnal, recovering several incriminating documents. Singh had joined as MC commissioner on July 10, 2025, and was transferred on January 27, 2026, serving a tenure of around six months. The Panchkula MC fraud is part of a larger Rs.504-crore scam linked to the Sector 32 branch of IDFC First Bank, where funds belonging to eight Haryana government departments were allegedly siphoned off through forged or non-existent fixed deposits and debit notes before being routed to shell entities. Later investigations revealed that funds of the Chandigarh municipal corporation and Chandigarh Renewable Energy and Science & Technology Promotion Society (CREST) were also siphoned off in a similar manner. In the Chandigarh case, Indian Forest Services officer Navneet Srivastava was arrested on Wednesday....