The Central Bureau of Investigation on Wednesday has registered a fresh FIR against Reliance Group Chairperson Anil Ambani and Reliance Communications in an aleged bank fraud case, reported news agency ANI.
This comes days after Anil Ambani appeared before the CBI in Delhi for questioning. He was questioned for eight hours straight reported NDTV. This was after SBI registered a complaint with the CBI, alleging the Ambani-led Reliance Communications of fraud.
The CBI registered a complaint after the SBI claimed a loss of Rs 2,929 crore resulting from alleged misappropriation by RCom and Anil Ambani by entering into transactions that violated the terms of loans extended by it. The PSU bank classified the accounts as fraud in June last year. This led to CBI searches at RCom's offices and Ambani's residence.
Along with Ambani, Amit Dangi, the whole-time director at Authum Investment & Infrastructure Ltd., was also summoned and interrogated for 7 hours. Authum Investment has taken over the assets of Reliance Commercial Finance Ltd. and Reliance Home Finance Ltd., both of which are under probe.
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Ambani moved the Supreme Court in December after the Bombay High Court upheld SBI's decision. The tycoon claimed certain documents, based on which the classification orders were passed, were not provided to him initially and were furnished only after six months.
Reliance Communications, once a major telecom operator, has been undergoing insolvency proceedings following mounting debt and operational challenges.
Legal Troubles
In March Ambani's son Jai Anmol Ambani was grilled by the CBI for two days in connection with the Rs 228-crore fraud case involving Reliance Home Finance Ltd. The agency questioned him in connection with an alleged bank fraud case in which he has been booked along with RHFL former CEO and ex-whole-time director, Ravindra Sudhalkar, and others.
The criminal case was registered against RHFL — a company of the Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group — its promoters or directors and unknown bank officials on the basis of a complaint by Union Bank of India. The complaint alleged criminal conspiracy, cheating and criminal misconduct, causing a wrongful loss of Rs 228 crore to Union Bank of India (ex-Andhra Bank).
Supreme Court's Warning
The Supreme Court had raised an alarm for delays in the on-going investigation into the Reliance group chairman and his assets.
The SC called reluctance shown by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) “unacceptable" while hearing a PIL related to alleged bank fraud.
The apex court had earlier noted that ED and CBI had been sluggish with their probes and said that it now expects them to conduct a fair investigation. The court had also directed the agencies to inform it about the progress of their investigation in the matter periodically.
The ED had initiated its investigation in the case last year, following a CBI FIR that named Anil Ambani, RCom, and others on charges of fraud, conspiracy, and corruption.
The focus of the probe is RCom and its affiliates, which had taken loans totaling more than Rs 40,000 crore from Indian and foreign banks between 2010 and 2012. Five of these accounts have since been declared fraudulent by the lending banks.
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