New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has provisionally attached assets worth Rs 1,885 crore of Anil Ambani's Reliance Group, including immovable properties, bank balances, receivables and shareholding in unquoted investments, according to a statement issued by the agency on Wednesday.
The attachments have been done in the Reliance Home Finance Ltd (RFHL), the Reliance Commercial Finance Ltd (RCFL), and the Yes Bank fraud case, as well as the Reliance Communication Ltd (RCOM) bank fraud case, the statement said.
The attached assets are in the form of shareholding of Reliance Infrastructure Ltd in BSES Yamuna Power Ltd, BSES Rajdhani Power Ltd, and Mumbai Metro One Private Ltd, it said.
Further, a bank balance of Rs 148 crore and receivables worth Rs 143 crore have been provisionally attached in the hands of M/s Value Corp Finance and Securities Ltd. Besides, a residential house in the name of Angarai Sethuraman, and shares/mutual funds in the name of Puneet Garg, both senior employees of Reliance Group, have been provisionally attached, it added, IANS reported.
The ED had earlier attached properties worth over Rs 10,117 crore in the bank fraud cases of RCOM, RCFL, and RHFL. The cumulative group attachment has now reached Rs 12,000 crore (approximately).
It has detected fraudulent diversion of public money by various Anil Ambani Reliance Group companies, including RCOM, RHFL, RCFL, Reliance Infrastructure Ltd (RIL) & Reliance Power Ltd.
During 2017–2019, Yes Bank invested Rs 2,965 crore in RHFL instruments and Rs 2,045 crore in RCFL instruments. By December 2019, these became non-performing investments.
The outstanding amount was Rs 1,353.50 crore for RHFL and Rs 1,984 crore for RCFL. The ED’s investigation in the case of RHFL and RCFL reveals that both received public funds of more than Rs 11,000 crore. Before Yes Bank invested this money in the Anil Ambani group companies, Yes Bank had received huge funds from the erstwhile Reliance Nippon Mutual Fund.
As per SEBI regulations, Reliance Nippon Mutual Fund could not invest or divert funds directly in Anil Ambani group finance companies due to conflict-of-interest rules. Therefore, public money in mutual fund schemes was routed indirectly by them. The path ran through Yes Bank’s exposures. The public funds reached Anil Ambani group companies through a circuitous route.
The ED has also initiated an investigation on the basis of an FIR registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation under various sections of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 and the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1989, against RCOM, Anil Ambani and others. RCOM and its group companies availed loans from domestic and foreign lenders from the period of 2010-2012 onwards, of which a total amount of Rs 40,185 crore is outstanding. As many as 9 banks have declared the loan accounts of the Group as a fraud.
The investigation revealed that loans taken by one entity from one bank were utilised for repayment of loans taken by other entities from other banks, transfer to related parties, and investments in mutual funds, which was in contravention of the terms and conditions of the sanction letter of the loans. In particular, RCOM and its group companies diverted over Rs 13,600 crore for evergreening of loans, over Rs 12,600 crore was diverted to connected parties and over Rs 1,800 crore was invested in FDs/MFs, etc., which was substantially liquidated for rerouting to group entities.
Huge misuse of bill discounting for the purpose of funnelling funds to connected parties has also been detected by ED. Certain loans were siphoned out of India through foreign outward remittances. Further investigation is still in progress, the statement added.