The former deputy vice president of Kotak Mahindra Bank, Pushpinder Singh, bought several luxury cars after siphoning off crores of rupees from the Panchkula Municipal Corporation, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) stated in its chargesheet against nine accused under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in a local court.
The action stems from the multi-crore Kotak Mahindra Bank fraud case, in which the ED is probing the laundering of ₹107.24 crore allegedly siphoned off from the Panchkula MC through unauthorised bank accounts. The agency has attached assets worth ₹131.13 crore, claiming to have secured 100% of the embezzled civic funds within four months of the FIR registration.
According to the ED, the investigation revealed that Pushpinder Singh, then deputy vice president of Kotak Mahindra Bank, in connivance with MC official Vikas Kaushik and bank employee Dilip Raghav, opened two unauthorised bank accounts in the name of the civic body using forged documents and fake authorisation letters. Funds from the corporation’s accounts were allegedly diverted into these accounts by bypassing the bank’s standard operating procedures.
The agency alleged that mobile numbers and email IDs linked to both the fake and genuine MC accounts were altered to those controlled by the accused, allowing fraudulent transactions to be executed without triggering the bank’s internal checks.
