Anil Ambani’s Reliance group faces ED asset attachment worth Rs 1,120 crore

The Reliance Centre, a guesthouse and some residential assets in Mumbai, apart from 231 plots of land in Chennai, are among the fresh assets worth Rs 1,120 crore attached by the ED as part of its ongoing money-laundering probe against the companies of Reliance Group chairman Anil Ambani.

The properties belong to Reliance Home Finance Limited (RHFL) and Reliance Commercial Finance Limited (RCFL), and the probe is linked to an alleged fraud at the Yes Bank, the federal agency said in a statement on Friday.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) earlier froze properties worth more than Rs 8,997 crore of the business group. With the latest action, the total value of attachment of the Reliance Group stands at Rs 10,117 crore, it said.

Among the 18 immovable assets provisionally attached under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) are the Reliance Centre in Ballard Estate, a commercial office building of Reliance Infrastructure Limited in Andheri East and residential properties and a guesthouse of Reliance Infrastructure Limited in Santacruz (all in Mumbai).

A total of 231 plots of land and seven residential flats in Chennai, belonging to Reliance Value Services Private Limited, have also been attached as part of the same order, the ED said.

The movable assets that have been attached include fixed and bank deposits, shareholding in unquoted investments of the Reliance Anil Ambani Group, apart from some other entities.

The total value of the attachment is Rs 1,120 crore, the agency said.

Reliance Group companies have repeatedly said Ambani was not involved in the day-to-day management of the conglomerate.

The industrialist has once been questioned by the ED as part of the money-laundering investigation linked to an alleged Rs 17,000-crore bank fraud against his group companies.

The ED said during 2017-2019, the Yes Bank invested Rs 2,965 crore in RHFL instruments and Rs 2,045 crore in FL instruments.

By December 2019, these had become non-performing investments. The outstanding was Rs 1,353.5 crore for RHFL and Rs 1,984 crore for FL, and the probe found that the two companies received public funds worth more than Rs 11,000 crore, according to the ED.

“Before Yes Bank invested this money in Reliance 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/divert funds directly in Anil Ambani group finance companies due to conflict-of-interest rules,” the ED said.

Therefore, public money in mutual fund schemes was routed indirectly by them and the path ran through the Yes Bank’s exposures.

The public funds reached Anil Ambani group companies through a “circuitous” route, the agency said.

The ED said it is “actively” pursuing perpetrators of financial crimes and is committed to restituting the proceeds of crime to their rightful claimants in this case.