Reliance Power CFO, two associates held in Rs 136 cr bank guarantee fraud
The Economic Offences Wing of Delhi Police has arrested the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Reliance Power Limited and two associates for allegedly submitting forged bank guarantees worth Rs 136.40 crore to a government agency in order to secure a tender, in a fraud that involved fake documents from foreign banks and fabricated confirmations falsely attributed to the State Bank of India.
The three arrested are Ashok Kumar Pal, 50, CFO of Reliance Power Ltd and a qualified chartered accountant who has been with the Reliance ADAG group since 2018;
Partha Sarthi Biswal, 54, Managing Director of Odisha-based Biswal Tradelink Pvt Ltd, who allegedly acted as an intermediary for arranging the forged guarantees; and Amarnath Dutta, 50, a resident of Kolkata, who worked as a middleman in the arrangement.
All three were arrested on April 15 and have been taken into police custody remand until April 23.
The case was registered on the complaint of Biblesh Meena, Manager at the Solar Energy Corporation of India, a public sector undertaking under the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy. According to the FIR, Reliance NU BESS Ltd, a subsidiary of Reliance Power Limited, submitted two bank guarantees of Rs 68.20 crore each during a tender process with SECI.
The guarantees were purportedly issued by two foreign banks: ACE Investment Bank, Malaysia, and FirstRand Bank Ltd, Manila, Philippines. To make the documents appear legitimate, the accused allegedly supported them with fake emails and fabricated Structured Financial Messaging System confirmations that were made to appear as if they had come from the State Bank of India. When SBI was approached for verification, the bank denied having issued any such confirmations.
Investigation by the EOW revealed that Pal, in his capacity as CFO of Reliance Power, conspired with Biswal, Dutta, and others to arrange the forged bank guarantees from the foreign banks. Senior officials paid large sums of money for the creation of the forged documents and endorsements, according to investigators.
The case has been registered under Sections 318(4), 338, 336(3), 340(2), and 61(2) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and Section 66D of the Information Technology Act at EOW police station, New Delhi, vide FIR No. 79/25 dated June 24, 2025.
Among the accused, Biswal is described as a businessman who runs an Odisha-based trading company and was used as the channel through which the forged guarantees were procured. Dutta, who holds a BCA degree and a diploma in import-export, served as the middleman facilitating the arrangement.
