Sanjeev Dixit: Seven years for PNB fraud, Rs 1.6 lakh fine

A CBI court at Rouse Avenue District Courts in New Delhi sentenced Sanjeev Dixit alias Sanjay Sharma to seven years’ rigorous imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs 1.6 lakh on 24 October 2026 in a bank-fraud case, the Central Bureau of Investigation said. According to the agency, Dixit pleaded guilty during the trial in the case involving a Rs 4 crore credit facility from Punjab National Bank.

The CBI said the guilty plea covered criminal conspiracy, cheating by personation, cheating, forgery of valuable security, forgery for the purpose of cheating, and using forged documents as genuine. Cheating by personation involves deceiving someone by assuming another identity. Rigorous imprisonment means imprisonment involving hard labour.

The sentencing order was not available for this report. The account of the conviction and punishment rests on the CBI’s statement, which does not identify the judge, give the statutory sections applied or explain how the sentence and fine were allocated across the offences.

The Shillong Times reported the agency’s announcement on 26 October. The date of the court’s decision, as specified by the CBI, was 24 October 2026, rather than the date the announcement was reported.

The Rs 4 crore Punjab National Bank case

The CBI registered the case on 11 July 2013. Its statement lists Sanjeev Dixit, proprietor of M/s Shankar Metals; Sanjay Sharma, proprietor of M/s Super Machines; Indra Rani; and unknown persons among those named at registration. The agency identifies the person now convicted as Sanjeev Dixit alias Sanjay Sharma.

According to the CBI, the accused conspired to obtain a Rs 4 crore cash credit facility from Punjab National Bank’s Jor Bagh branch in New Delhi through bogus and forged property documents. A cash credit facility allows a business to borrow within a sanctioned limit, rather than receiving only a single fixed loan disbursement.

The agency alleged that the borrowers diverted the proceeds to purposes other than those for which the bank had sanctioned the facility. Its account therefore concerns both the documents used to secure the credit and the subsequent use of the money.

The Rs 4 crore figure describes the credit facility in the CBI’s statement. The statement does not specify how much the bank recovered or give an outstanding loss figure. It should not be read as establishing that the whole sanctioned amount remains unpaid.

The CBI links the conviction to Dixit’s guilty plea. Its announcement does not provide a separate account of sentencing submissions by the prosecution or defence, or the court’s reasons for choosing the reported punishment.

Escape, search and arrest

According to the CBI, Dixit escaped from judicial custody in 2016 while being produced before a court in Sonipat in connection with another case. He subsequently evaded arrest, and the trial court declared him a proclaimed offender on 23 November 2017. That designation records a court’s formal action against an accused who remains beyond its reach; it is distinct from a conviction.

The agency said it received information in January 2026 that he was living in Vadodara under the assumed identity of Pankaj Bhardwaj. Investigators traced him to a temple in Banswara and arrested him on 30 January 2026.

An earlier account in The Times of India, published on 31 January 2026, reported the CBI’s explanation of the search. According to that report, the agency used open-source information, data analysis and human intelligence to identify the assumed identity and narrow down his location through mobile data and financial transactions.

The Times of India also reported that the CBI had named Dixit in two separate cases registered in 2013: one involving Rs 9.9 crore and another involving Rs 4 crore. The sentence announced in October concerns the latter facility, according to the CBI’s description. The amounts in the two cases should not be combined as the value of the offence covered by this sentence.

A separate Delhi Police proceeding

Dixit also faced a separate bank-fraud investigation by Delhi Police’s Economic Offences Wing. Asianet News reported, citing police, that he was arrested in that proceeding on 25 June 2026 after being produced from Tihar Jail, where he was held in another criminal case.

According to the police account reported by Asianet News, that investigation concerned allegations that a forged property sale deed and impersonation were used to obtain bank credit. Police alleged that credit facilities exceeding Rs 18 crore had been secured from multiple banks using forged property documents.

Those remain allegations in the separate police proceeding. The CBI’s announcement of the seven-year sentence does not establish an outcome in that case.

The CBI statement also does not state the outcome for the other people named when its Rs 4 crore case was registered, or whether Dixit has filed an appeal against the conviction or sentence.