Anil Ambani skips ED summons, requests for virtual attendance in highway project probe
Anil Ambani, chairman of the Reliance Group, who was scheduled to appear before the Enforcement Directorate (ED), requested the agency to allow him to appear by virtual means. Ambani wrote to ED to fully cooperate on all matters.
A spokesperson for Ambani said that the ED summoned him in connection with a Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) inquiry and not PMLA as multiple reports suggested. The spokesperson said that the FEMA matter pertains to a case relating to the Jaipur-Reengus Highway Project.
“The matter is 15 years old, dates to 2010, and concerns issues associated with a road contractor. In 2010, Reliance Infrastructure Ltd. awarded an EPC contract for the construction of the JR Toll Road (Jaipur–Ringus Highway). This was a purely domestic contract with no foreign exchange component involved whatsoever. The JR Toll Road has been fully completed and, from 2021 onwards, has been with the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) for over past four years,” the spokesperson said.
Anil Ambani is not a member of the Board of Reliance Infrastructure and had served the company for about 15 years, from April 2007 to March 2022, only as a non-executive director, the spokesperson said. He was never involved in day-to-day management of the company, the statement added.
According to a report in NDTV Profit, the agency is unlikely to accept the request and is only likely to issue another date.
Meanwhile, the ED had attached over 132 acres of land belonging to Dhirubhai Ambani Knowledge City (DAKC) in Navi Mumbai worth Rs 4,462.81 crore earlier this month. This action was part of the bank fraud case involving Anil Ambani’s Reliance Communications Ltd (RCom).
The ED stated that the cumulative attachment of properties in the group now stands at over Rs 7,500 crore.
According to the ED, RCom and its group firms availed loans worth Rs 40,185 crore from domestic and foreign lenders between 2010 and 2012. Five banks have declared the loan accounts fraudulent. The probe revealed large-scale diversion of funds.
