Athira Sethu
Kochi, 7 August 2026
A former deputy Vice President of Kotak Mahindra Bank, Pushpinder Singh, indulged in a luxurious life using money allegedly defrauded from the Panchkula Municipal Corporation of Haryana, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) found out from its probe.
According to ED investigation, Singh bought several high-end cars, luxury watches, furniture, and other valuable assets from the ill-gotten money.
A chargesheet has been filed by the Enforcement Directorate in which Singh, two of his co-workers at Kotak Mahindra Bank, and one employee of the municipal corporation have been accused of conspiring and stealing more than ₹107 crore of the money of the Haryana state government.
As per the probe done by the ED, Singh along with his co-accused had allegedly created two bank accounts with forged papers and authorisation letters for the Panchkula Municipal Corporation and had diverted the funds from the real accounts of the corporation into these forged accounts.
The ED accused the individual in question of defying orders from the municipality, creating fake documents to give the transaction a legal facade. According to the ED, the individuals’ mobile number and email ID for the fake account was altered to get alerts about the bank activities without being detected by the bank’s internal security systems.
According to the report, the money obtained was allegedly used to purchase some luxury vehicles, which included a Porsche Cayenne, various BMWs, Jeep Wranglers, Toyota Land Cruiser, and a Harley-Davidson bike. The ED accused the individual in question of selling these vehicles after the scam was exposed in order to evade detection.
The ED also charged the individual in question with the use of part of the money for transferring money to persons related to Singh, including his wife, Preeti Thakur.
As per ED, Singh had later made the transfers of ownership of some of the properties of Panchkula to his sister Gunita Sethi through transactions which are termed by the ED as “round-tripping” of money. As per the ED, these transactions were made to conceal the ownership of the properties and ensure that they could not be attached as per PMLA.
ED has also charged that some of the funds were used to give unsecured cash loans to individuals and companies on an annual interest of 36%.
The investigation for money laundering was triggered when the Haryana Anti-corruption Bureau filed a case and referred it to ED. Till now, ED has calculated that the fraud amounts to ₹107.24 crore while attaching the properties worth ₹131 crore.
