The CBI on Monday said it has arrested two senior executives of an Anil Ambani group company, Reliance Communications (RCOM) — Anil Kalya and D Vishwanath — in an alleged bank fraud case. The two executives were important functionaries of the Reliance Communications group, managing corporate finance, banking operations, payments/utilisation of funds, etc., the CBI has alleged in a statement issued on Monday.
The CBI said it has arrested them in a case registered on a complaint filed by the State Bank of India on allegations that the bank sanctioned credit facilities to the company but due to the accused borrowers’ “fraudulent” activities, the lender suffered a wrongful loss of around ₹2,929.05 crore.
In a statement, the company spokesperson said Vishwanath and Kalya served as Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and Vice President (Accounts and Finance), respectively, at Reliance Communications after the company was admitted into the Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process (CIRP) in 2019.
“RCOM operates under the supervision of Resolution Professional, Anish Nanavaty, who was appointed by the Committee of Creditors led by the State Bank of India (SBI), with Deloitte acting as advisor,” it said.
The statement said Reliance Communications is no longer part of the Reliance Group as the company has been undergoing CIRP since 2019 under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC), 2016, and has remained in the resolution process for nearly seven years, with proceedings still pending in 2026.
“Anil D Ambani served as a non-executive director on the board of RCOM and stepped down from this position in 2019, nearly seven years ago. He was not involved in the day-to-day operations of the company,” it said.
According to the CBI, a wrongful loss of ₹19,694 crore was caused to 17 public sector banks and financial institutions. The CBI is in the process of registering separate cases related to each bank’s losses.
Investigation found that RCOM entered into “circuitous” transactions through “shell” entities controlled by company officials.
RCOM obtained discounted Letters of Credit (LCs) opened for “bogus” service-related transactions with its group entities, which devolved and resulted in huge losses for the banks, the agency said.
Vishwanath was in overall charge of the group’s banking operations, and he directed the “misutilisation” of funds, the CBI alleged.
It said he coordinated with banks for the sanction and disbursal of the facilities to the accused company.
The probe agency said Kalya “actively” supported Vishwanath, adding that they were both “important” RCOM functionaries managing corporate finance, banking operations, payments and fund utilisation.
The agency, over the last few months, has so far registered seven cases against the Anil Ambani-led Reliance Group based on complaints lodged by various public sector banks and LIC for alleged fraud totalling thousands of crores of rupees.
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