New Delhi, April 20 (IANS) The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has arrested two senior executives of Anil Ambani-controlled Reliance Communications (RCom), D. Vishwanath and Anil Kalya, in connection with the Rs 19,694 crore bank fraud case registered against the company, according to an agency statement on Monday.
The CBI had registered a regular case against Reliance Communications Limited, Anil D Ambani, and unknown others on the complaint of State Bank of India (SBI), on the allegations that the bank had sanctioned credit facilities to the accused company, but due to the fraudulent activities of the accused borrowers, the bank had to suffer wrongful loss of around Rs 2,929.05 crore.
As per the complaint filed by the SBI, a wrongful loss of Rs 19,694.33 crore has been caused to 17 public sector banks and financial institutions.
Investigations carried out so far have revealed that RCom Ltd entered into circuitous transactions through shell entities controlled by the company’s officials and also got discounted letters of credit (LCs) opened for bogus service-related transactions with its group entities, which got devolved, causing huge losses to the banks.
RCom Joint President Vishwanath was overall in charge of banking operations of the group, and the misutilisation of funds was carried out on his directions.
He was in coordination with banks for the sanction and disbursal of the facilities to the accused company.
Kalya, who was vice president of the company, had actively supported Vishwanth, and these two were important functionaries of the RCom group managing corporate finance, banking operations, payments and utilisation of funds at the relevant time.
The two executives will now be produced before the jurisdictional court, according to the CBI statement.
The investigation in the case is still ongoing, the statement said.
Meanwhile, responding to the development, Reliance Group clarified that Reliance Communications is no longer part of the group and that Anil Ambani has not been involved in the company’s day-to-day operations since stepping down as a non-executive director in 2019.
“Reliance Communications is no longer part of the Reliance Group as the company has been undergoing CIRP since 2019 under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC), 2016, and has remained in the resolution process for nearly seven years, with proceedings still pending in 2026,” the spokesperson said.
“Anil D. Ambani served as a non-executive director on the board of RCOM and stepped down from this position in 2019, nearly seven years ago. He was not involved in the day-to-day operations of the company,” the spokesperson added.
–IANS
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