Chandigarh, Sept. 17 -- A special court of Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) has framed charges against a former banker for his involvement in an alleged Rs.20 crore scam. The accused, Rajinder Singh Kalsi, the then bank manager at Punjab and Sind Bank's Sector-24 branch was accused in a Rs.20-crore scam in 2012. The initial FIR was first lodged by Chandigarh police's economic offences wing in 2012 and the enforcement directorate (ED) registered another case against Kalsi on September 20, 2023. As per the enforcement directorate case, the accused, while being the branch manager, allegedly misused his official position and sanctioned loans to fictitious persons, allowing complete disbursement of the house loan in one go. After receiving a complaint from the bank officials in 2012, the police had registered a case under various sections including cheating and criminal conspiracy of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) at Sector-11 police station. Kalsi was acquitted by a local court in November 2024 along with Karan Thakur, a liquor contractor and Pardeep Goel, a Mohali based businessman. However, after 10 years of initial case, the ED had filed a separate case against Kalsi under Sections 3 and 4 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act. He has also been served a chargesheet to which he has pleaded not guilty and opted for trial which will start on December 5 for prosecution evidence. He is currently out on bail. In the earlier case, the police had claimed that the scrutiny of housing loans revealed that all loans, amounting to lakhs, were issued on fictitious names and plots. Rajinder, who was posted in Sector 24 during the alleged fraud, was the head of the loan section of the branch from June 2010 to June 2012. During his tenure, he was allegedly responsible for sanctioning a total of 116 loans using alleged fictitious names and forged documents. The police alleged that Kalsi had used passwords of his subordinate staff members to carry out these transactions. The defence counsel had argued that the prosecution lacked any evidence to prove the accused's involvement in the alleged fraud. They also claimed that the police had failed to present the original files of the alleged loans....