CBI Lodges Case Against, Searches Home of Anil Ambani's Son Jai Anmol In Bank Fraud Case
New Delhi: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Tuesday (December 9) lodged a case against and searched the premises of Reliance Home Finance and Reliance Commercial Finance as well as their former directors, including tycoon Anil Ambani's son Jai Anmol Ambani, in two bank fraud cases.
“Several incriminating documents [were] observed” during searches of two Reliance Home Finance premises as well as the residential premises of its former director Jai Anmol and former CEO Ravindra Sudhalkar in Mumbai, the CBI said in a statement quoted in the press.
It filed a case against Reliance Home Finance in connection with the Union Bank of India's complaint saying that the firm caused it a wrongful loss of Rs 228.06 crore. The agency has invoked provisions including criminal conspiracy, cheating and criminal misconduct against the company, its promoters or directors and unknown bank officials, according to its statement.
After the bank declared Reliance Home Finance's loan account to be a non-performing asset in September 2019, a forensic examination it commissioned pointed to “systemic diversion of borrowed funds”, The Hindu reported citing the complaint in the case. The bank subsequently deemed the loan account fraudulent in October last year.
In Reliance Commercial Finance's case, the Bank of Maharashtra has accused the company of causing it a wrongful loss of Rs 57.47 crore. The CBI invoked criminal conspiracy, cheating and criminal misconduct provisions against the firm, whose loan account was declared a non-performing asset in March 2020 and as fraudulent on October 4 this year, per the CBI's reported statement. Incriminating documents were observed during its searches, it added.
Both firms were taken over by Authum Investments and Infrastructure in a debt resolution process in 2022-23.
Meanwhile, the insolvent Reliance Communications said in a disclosure to stock exchanges on Tuesday that the Union Bank of India had declared loan accounts belonging to it and its subsidiary Reliance Telecom to be fraudulent earlier this month.
The cases are another setback for Anil Ambani, who is the younger brother of India's richest man Mukesh Ambani and who was once considered close to the Narendra Modi government.
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