Chandigarh/Panchkula, June 24 -- The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has arrested senior Haryana IAS officer Pankaj Agarwal for his alleged role in the misappropriation of government funds maintained with IDFC First Bank's Chandigarh branch, officials said on Tuesday. Agarwal was produced in a Panchkula court and remanded in two-day CBI custody. The 2000-batch IAS officer was the principal secretary of the department of school education and the department of agriculture when the Haryana School Shiksha Pariyojna Parishad and the Haryana State Agriculture Marketing Board opened accounts at the bank's Sector 32 branch in Chandigarh in violation of the state finance department's guidelines. The CBI, which took over the probe following the Haryana government's request in May, found that the departments transferred funds well in excess of permitted limits into these accounts. Through a series of fraudulent transactions executed within these accounts, public funds were then systematically misappropriated, resulting in a net loss of Rs.60.54 crore to the state government. The CBI said it has collected incriminating evidence against the IAS officer during the course of its investigation. The fraud detected within the education and agriculture departments was part of a far larger, systemic racket running out of the same IDFC First Bank branch, CBI probe discovered. In total, Rs.504 crore belonging to eight Haryana government departments was siphoned off and routed into various shell entities according to CBI. The federal probe agency has so far chargesheeted 17 individuals in connection with the larger case, including six IDFC First Bank and AU Small Finance Ban officials, and three Haryana government employees. Another IAS officer, RK Singh, who was previously arrested in connection with the misappropriation of funds from Municipal Corporation of Panchkula, has been sent to judicial custody after his police remand ended. The CBI has expanded its regional crackdown by taking over two additional corruption cases from the Union Territory of Chandigarh. One involves the Chandigarh Smart City Limited (CSCL) and the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation, while the other concerns the Chandigarh Renewable Energy and Science & Technology Promotion Society (CREST). Chargesheets have already been filed in both matters. Seeking Aggarwal's remand, the CBI told court that the analysis of the officer's mobile phone revealed that incriminating chats and call logs had been deleted. The agency alleged that he failed to provide any explanation or assistance in retrieving the deleted data, indicating an attempt to suppress or destroy material evidence. The CBI further submitted that throughout the investigation, Agarwal had remained non-cooperative and had withheld crucial information despite being confronted with incriminating material. The agency also argued that, as a senior IAS officer, Agarwal enjoys considerable influence over subordinate officials and witnesses connected with the case. It expressed apprehension that he could influence or intimidate witnesses if not subjected to custodial interrogation. The CBI told the court that custodial interrogation was necessary to confront the accused with documentary and digital evidence, bank records and transaction trails collected during the investigation. It said deleted electronic evidence, including communications, passwords and connected devices, needed to be recovered. CBI also sought to trace the trail of the allegedly misappropriated funds and identify assets, including properties and gold, allegedly purchased from the proceeds of the crime....