By Sulagna Halder
Bhopal, June 20, 2025:
Two people, including a senior manager from Punjab National Bank (PNB), have been taken into custody by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in relation to a ₹183.21 crore fraudulent bank guarantee scheme that was connected to profitable irrigation contracts in Madhya Pradesh.
The arrests took place in Kolkata on June 19 as part of a large scale, multi state operation that was started after the Madhya Pradesh High Court issued a directive. On May 9, 2025, the CBI filed three distinct cases and carried out coordinated searches in 23 different locations throughout Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Gujarat, Jharkhand, and Delhi.
The scam, according to investigators, involved Teerth Gopicon Limited, an Indore based company that obtained three irrigation contracts worth ₹974 crore in 2023 by presenting eight fictitious bank guarantees totaling ₹183.21 crore that were allegedly issued by PNB. Contractual awards were made after it was discovered that the email confirmations that were initially sent to the Madhya Pradesh Jal Nigam Limited (MPJNL) were fraudulent.
Following their detention under CBI custody, Mohammed Firoz Khan of Kolkata and Govind Chandra Hansda, the senior PNB manager, were sent to Indore on transit remand for additional interrogation. According to CBI sources, the scam was carried out by a syndicate based in Kolkata that evaded multiple levels of verification by using digital forgery techniques and forged documents.
"During initial verification, MPJNL received fraudulent email responses impersonating the official domain of Punjab National Bank, falsely confirming the authenticity of the bank guarantees," a CBI spokesperson stated. The spokesperson added that high value contracts were awarded as a result of this illusion. Sections of the Indian Penal Code pertaining to criminal conspiracy, cheating, forgery, and the use of forged documents are all involved in this fraud.
The CBI has seized digital evidence that tracks the suspects' financial and electronic movements and anticipates making more arrests as the investigation goes on. Additionally, the agency is investigating whether similar forgeries were used in other states to obtain government contracts.
In addition to revealing a significant financial theft, officials emphasized that this operation also reveals long-standing weaknesses in institutional verification systems.
