CBI arrests two RCom executives in Rs 19,694 crore bank fraud case

The CBI has arrested two senior Reliance Communications executives in connection with a Rs 19,694 crore bank fraud case. Investigations revealed alleged fund diversion and fraudulent transactions, causing major losses to public sector banks and financial institutions

New Delhi: 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.

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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.

The CBI has, in the last few months, registered 7 cases against the Anil Ambani-led Reliance Group on complaints lodged by various public sector banks and LIC for fraud running into thousands of crores of rupees.