Haryana IAS officer Pankaj Agarwal, who is in judicial custody in the Rs 657-crore IDFC First Bank-AU Small Finance Bank scam, has claimed before the CBI Special Court, Haryana, that he “has never demanded or accepted any bribe from anyone” and the only role attributed to him was to give administrative approvals to the “proposals received from subordinate officers.”

Agarwal, who has been under suspension since his arrest on June 22, has moved an application for regular bail. The notice has been given to the CBI for July 30.

However, according to the CBI, he facilitated the opening of accounts of Haryana School Shiksha Pariyojna Parishad (HSSPP) and Haryana State Agriculture Marketing Board (HSAMB) and was aware of the fraudulent transactions leading to the loss of Rs 60.54 crore.

In his bail application, Agarwal claimed that the CBI failed to find any evidence to connect him with the alleged fraud.

It was submitted that he had approved the file for opening of account in HSSPP at IDFC First Bank and the funds were placed from IDBI Bank as per the proposal received from subordinate officers. He said he was not the signatory to the account opening forms.

He said he was not aware about the “alleged irregularities while opening the bank account nor at any point of time was aware about the fraudulent withdrawal of the money from the bank accounts maintained by the department at IDFC First Bank.” He said the Rs 50-crore ceiling (for the IDFC First Bank) was later removed, “undermining the allegation that the decision was inherently illegal”.

Accusing CBI of elevating an administrative decision into an allegation of criminal conspiracy, the bail application argued that it was a settled principle of law that “criminal conspiracy cannot be presumed merely because an administrative decision was subsequently exploited by the third party.”