Bank loan fraud: ED files chargesheet against ex-RCOM executive Punit Garg

The Enforcement Directorate on Friday filed a chargesheet against former Reliance Communications president Punit Garg and another person as part of its money laundering probe into an alleged Rs 40,000 crore bank loan fraud case. The company’s promoter, Anil Ambani, is not figured in the chargesheet. The chargesheet was filed before a special court at Rouse Avenue under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

The more than 170-page chargesheet names Garg and Vaishali Jairam Mane, a former director at US-based Bonn Investment Inc, as accused in the case, officials said. The ED arrested Garg, 61, in January this year.

The former Reliance Communications (RCOM) president, while holding senior managerial and directorial positions in the company from 2001 to 2025, was actively involved in the acquisition, possession, concealment, layering and dissipation of proceeds of crime generated from the said bank fraud, the ED claimed earlier. The alleged laundered funds were “diverted” through multiple foreign subsidiaries and offshore entities of RCOM, it alleged.

As the president of RCOM, the agency said, Garg was handling the global enterprise business of the company between 2006 and 2013. He also served as president (regulatory affairs) from 2014 to 2017. In October 2017, Garg was appointed executive director at RCOM, and from April 2019 till April 2025, he served as a non-executive director of the company, according to the ED.

It was found that the proceeds of crime generated from the alleged fraud were “diverted” to purchase a luxury condominium apartment in Manhattan, New York.

Mane was allegedly linked to the purchase of this Manhattan apartment and has therefore been named in the chargesheet, the ED said.

The property was “fraudulently” sold in 2023 during a corporate insolvency resolution process (CIRP) of RCOM by Garg, the ED said.

It is understood that RCOM informed the stock exchange about this “fraudulent” sale in 2025.

“The sale proceeds of $8.3 million (about Rs 69.55 crore in 2023) were remitted from the US under the guise of a sham investment arrangement with a Dubai-based entity controlled by a Pakistan-linked individual, without the knowledge or consent of the resolution professional (RP),” the agency said.

A part of the proceeds of crime — public money taken by RCOM as bank loans — was “diverted” for Garg’s personal expenses, including overseas education-related payments for his children, the agency claimed.

In December 2025, the ED had filed a chargesheet against Anil Ambani’s group company, Reliance Power Ltd, and 10 others in a money laundering case linked to the issuance of an alleged fake bank guarantee of Rs 68 crore for securing a tender.

The federal probe agency has constituted a special investigation team to probe the alleged financial irregularities conducted by Anil Ambani’s group companies at the direction of the Supreme Court.