The Central Bureau of Investigation has booked IL&FS Energy Development Company Limited, its managing director and several directors in a case alleging fraud and criminal conspiracy against Canara Bank. The agency says the bank suffered a loss of Rs 212.34 crore.

The case was registered on the complaint of Canara Bank’s circle office in Bandra East, Mumbai. It also includes allegations under the Prevention of Corruption Act, which raises the stakes well beyond a routine commercial dispute.

Named in the case are managing director and directors Sunil Wadhwa, Anoop Sethi, Hari Shankaran, Ramesh Chandra Bav and Arun Kumar Saha. Unidentified government employees and private individuals have also been made accused, so the list of people under scrutiny is not limited to the five named directors.

How the Money Allegedly Moved

According to the CBI, the accused allegedly took a term loan of Rs 100 crore from the LCB branch in Mumbai of what was then Syndicate Bank. They also allegedly took a loan of 50 million US dollars, which the report describes as 5 crore US dollars, from the bank’s London branch.

The central allegation is about what happened after the money arrived. The loans were sanctioned for specific purposes, and the company allegedly did not use the funds for those purposes. Instead, investigators say the money was moved elsewhere through associate companies.

The company allegedly sent the bank’s money elsewhere through its associate companies, and the bank suffered losses as a result.

That is the core of the case as the CBI presents it. Diversion of loan funds through a web of related entities is one of the most difficult patterns for lenders to track, and it is precisely the kind of activity that leaves a bank exposed long after the money has left its books.

Raids Across Three Cities

After registering the case on 21 October 2026, the CBI carried out searches at several locations linked to the company’s managing director and directors. The raids covered Mumbai, Delhi and Noida, among other places.

Investigators seized a substantial volume of material. The recovered documents include bank records, deposit slips, mutual fund papers, information about the directors’ bank accounts and properties, and the company’s account books. The CBI has taken all of these documents into its custody.

Each of those items points in a different direction. Bank records and deposit slips can trace the path of the disbursed money. Mutual fund papers and details of personal accounts and property can show where value may have gone. The company’s ledgers will be the test of whether the official books match the money trail.

Why This Case Is Drawing Attention

Fraud cases involving a public sector bank are always closely watched, but this one carries extra weight because it names top executives rather than junior staff. When the people at the top of a company are accused of steering loan money into related entities, the question quickly becomes how such transactions passed through lending checks in the first place.

That is why the case has attracted wide public interest. Confidence in India’s financial sector depends on the belief that large loans are scrutinised, that sanctioned money is used for its stated purpose, and that wrongdoing at the top is investigated seriously. A probe of this scale puts all three of those assumptions under a spotlight.

The allegations have not been proven in court. What is established at this stage is that the CBI has registered a case, carried out searches across three cities and seized documents that now form part of the investigation. The next phase will determine how much of the CBI’s account holds up under scrutiny.