New Delhi: Anil Ambani on Monday (November 17) reportedly did not appear before the anti-financial crimes Enforcement Directorate (ED) for a second time in a Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) case, with a spokesperson saying that he has offered to make a virtual appearance or record a video statement.

Meanwhile, a former bureaucrat has moved the Supreme Court seeking a judicially monitored investigation into allegations of bank fraud against Ambani and his Reliance Communications, arguing that the State Bank of India (SBI)'s ‘nearly five-year delay’ in getting an FIR lodged against the firm, in combination with the scale of the matter, point to the possibility that its officials colluded with or tried to shield the insolvent company.

Ambani has ‘offered to appear online, give recorded video’: spox

Ambani, who had skipped the ED's summons in the FEMA case on Friday, also did not appear before the agency on Monday, PTI reported.

The ED alleged earlier this month that a search and seizure it conducted in connection with Reliance Infrastructure “found Rs 40 crore siphoned from the Jaipur-Reengus highway project”.

“Funds moved through Surat-based shell companies to Dubai. The trail has unearthed a wider international hawala network exceeding Rs 600 crore,” the agency had said.

On Monday, a spokesperson for Ambani said that the ED's summons to him “pertains solely to the recording of his statement”.

Ambani has offered to make himself available for doing this via videoconferencing or through a recorded video, the spokesperson said.

The highway project, the spokesperson added, “was a purely domestic contract with no foreign exchange component involved whatsoever”.

The matter dates back to 2010 and Ambani was a non-executive director of Reliance Infrastructure between 2007 and 2022 where he was not in charge of day-to-day operations, they added.

Case is of ‘exceptional gravity’ and ‘requires judicial oversight’, alleges ex-IAS officer

E.A.S. Sarma, a retired IAS officer, has filed a public interest litigation petition before the Supreme Court via lawyer Prashant Bhushan alleging that the SBI's taking close to five years in getting a case filed against Reliance Communications warrants “examining whether officers [of the bank] acted in collusion or with deliberate intent to shield the borrower group”.

But the CBI and the ED “have entirely failed to investigate this institutional angle, thereby excluding from scrutiny the very public officials whose complicity or willful inaction forms an essential part of the criminal conspiracy,” Sarma charged in his petition.

According to LiveLaw, Chief Justice of India B.R. Gavai agreed to urgently list the petition.

In June this year, the SBI drawing from an October 2020 forensic audit report declared Reliance Communications' loan account to be fraudulent in connection with loans issued between 2013 and 2017.

The CBI in August lodged an FIR in the matter alleging a loss of over Rs 2,929 crore to the public sector bank and invoking provisions including criminal conspiracy and cheating.

A spokesperson for Ambani had said at the time that he “strongly denies all allegations and charges” and asserted the scion was being “selectively singled out”.

India Today has noted that while the SBI had alleged fraud on part of Reliance Communications in late 2020, the bank returned its complaint following a status quo order issued by the Delhi high court in early 2021.

After the Supreme Court in March 2023 ruled that borrowers must be given a chance to make their case before being labelled fraudulent, the bank some months later reversed the classification but reinitiated the process in 2024, which culminated in its fraud declaration earlier this year, the magazine reported.

Sarma in his petition before the apex court alleged that a number of materials he had placed before the court, including the 2020 forensic audit report, a recent investigative media report as well as various news reports, also point to a “sustained, organised and coordinated scheme that could not have occurred without institutional facilitation”.

“These reports, though originating from different sources and prepared at different times, present a consistent pattern of corporate misconduct marked by siphoning of public money, manipulation of books, layering of transactions through domestic and offshore entities, and repeated violations of statutory frameworks such as the Companies Act, FEMA, SEBI regulations, RBI directions and even the Prevention of Corruption Act where public officials are involved,” Sarma alleged.

“Hence, keeping in mind the status of bank officials as public servants and the possible and likely involvement of government officials, the present matter ought to be investigated under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, which, the investigating authorities have failed to consider till now,” the former bureaucrat also argued in his plea.

The case before the court is one of “exceptional gravity that cannot be left to routine investigation and requires judicial oversight to ensure a complete, impartial and transparent inquiry,” he said.

The Wire is now on WhatsApp. Follow our channel for sharp analysis and opinions on the latest developments.