The bank accounts of three Anil Ambani-led Reliance Group entities – Reliance Communications (RCom), Reliance Infratel and Reliance Telecom (RTL) – have been classified as ‘fraudulent’ by India’s three major lenders, including the State Bank of India (SBI), Union Bank of India (UBI) and the Indian Overseas Bank (IOB).
According to RCom’s official website, it owes ₹49,193 crores in dues. Apart from RCom, Reliance Telecom owes ₹24,306.27 crores, and Reliance Infratel owes ₹12,687.65 crores.
The group’s total debt is over ₹86,188 crores, which is nearly a ten-fold hike than what Vijay Mallya and Nirav Modi owed to Indian banks, with debt amounting to ₹9,000 crores and ₹7,409.07 crores respectively.
Anil Ambani, the fallen billionaire, may have claimed his net worth to be ‘zero’, but the banks are not buying it.
The Economic Times reported that the banks were looking to initiate a probe into the transactions from these three Reliance entities’ accounts.
After the Reliance Communications (RCom) and Reliance Telecom filed a plea against the declaration of their accounts as fraudulent, the Delhi High Court ordered UBI and IOB to maintain the status quo until the next date of hearing, i.e, on January 13.
The Court has also said that the Centre can take further steps, investigate the matter and file any complaint proceedings against the two companies.
The banks are free to issue a show-cause notice to the companies.
As of now, the SBI and the Reliance Group declined to comment on the issue.
The latest allegations come a year after a forensic audit found questionable transactions worth ₹5,500 crores in the three Reliance entities. The probe that looked at transactions between May 2017 and March 2018 examined over 100,000 entries and found three large entries that indicated fund diversion.
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