New Delhi | The Enforcement Directorate on Saturday said it has filed a chargesheet against businessman 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 other accused named in the prosecution complaint include former Reliance Power CFO Ashok Kumar Pal, Reliance NU BESS Ltd and Rosa Power Supply Company Ltd (subsidiaries of Reliance Power), Reliance Group executive Punit Narendra Garg and trade financing consultant Amar Nath Dutta.
According to the agency, Biothane Chemicals Pvt Ltd, Ravinder Pal Singh Chadha and Manoj Bhaiyasaheb, Pongde, are also named as accused.
This is a supplementary chargesheet and the ED had named an Odisha-based "shell" company Biswal Tradelink Private Limited and its MD Patha Sarathi Biswal in its first chargesheet filed in this case sometime back.
The latest prosecution complaint has been filed under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) at the Patiala House court in Delhi on Friday, as per officials.
Reliance Power told the stock market in a statement that the company, its subsidiaries and its employees "acted bona-fidely and are victims of a fraud, forgery, cheating and conspiracy committed by the third parties."
The case pertains to a bank guarantee of Rs 68.2 crore submitted to secure a tender from the Solar Energy Corporation of India Limited (SECI) on behalf of Reliance NU BESS Limited, a subsidiary of Reliance Power, a listed company.
The company (Reliance NU BESS) was formerly known as Maharashtra Energy Generation Limited.
The probe, as per the agency, found that Reliance Group officials were well aware that this was a "fake" bank guarantee. "Fraudulent" endorsements were being submitted to SECI from a "spoofed" email ID of SBI and when SECI detected the fraud, Reliance Group arranged a genuine bank guarantee from IDBI Bank within a day of intimation of the fraud by SECI.
"However, SECI refused to accept the fresh bank guarantee as it was submitted after the due date.
"Since Reliance NU BESS Limited had emerged as the L-2 bidder, in order to save the tender, Reliance Group officials even tried to arrange a fresh endorsement of the fake foreign Bank Guarantee from an SBI branch in Kolkata," the ED alleged.
The company said in the statement that the ED case was based upon a police FIR that was lodged by it and the allegations made by the probe agency have not yet passed through judicial scrutiny. The filing of this complaint does not affect the affairs of the company in any manner, it said.
The ED added that Reliance Group officials signed a "dummy" agreement and also obtained the "Certificate of Enlistment" of Reliance NU BESS Limited from Kolkata Municipal Corporation by submitting "bogus" address documents.
However, when they again failed to get the fresh endorsement done, in order to shift the entire blame onto the intermediary, they allegedly filed a complaint against Biswal Tradelink Private Limited and its MD Partha Sarathi Biswal.
Biswal was arrested by the ED in this case apart from ex-Reliance Power CFO Ashok Kumar Pal and Dutta. They are currently lodged in jail under judicial custody.
The money laundering case stems from a November 2024 FIR of Delhi Police's Economic Offences Wing (EOW). It was alleged that Bhubaneswar-based shell entity Biswal Tradelink was engaged in issuing "fake" bank guarantees against commission.
Reliance Power Limited submitted this bid for a tender issued by SECI for setting up 1000 MW/2000 MWh standalone BESS projects under tariff-based competitive bidding.
The investigation has "established" the "connivance" and "mala fide" intentions of the Reliance Group in securing the SECI tender by allegedly submitting fake bank guarantees purportedly issued by foreign banks and their forged endorsements in the name of SBI, the ED said.
The agency also stated in the chargesheet that it has attached assets worth Rs 5.15 crore as part of this probe.
The agency added that Reliance Power, allegedly with a mala fide intent, hired the services of Biswal Tradelink to arrange a fake bank guarantee from FirstRand Bank, Manila, Philippines, which is a "non-existent" branch, and from ACE Investment Bank Limited, Malaysia.
"Endorsements of the fake Bank Guarantees were done by using a spoofed email ID of SBI and forged endorsement letters purportedly issued by SBI.
"A fraudulent domain, s-bi.co.in (a look-alike of genuine address sbi.co.in), was used for the said purpose," it said.
Describing the role of other accused, the ED said Reliance Power routed funds of Rs 6.33 crore from its other subsidiary, Rosa Power Supply Company Ltd to Biswal Tradelink under the guise of bogus transportation services, in order to meet the required funding for arranging the "fake" bank guarantee.
A "fake" work order and "fake" invoices were executed by the officials of Reliance Group in collusion with accomplice Biswal, according to the ED.
"After arrangement of the fraudulent Bank Guarantee by Biswal Tradelink Reliance Power also paid a hefty fee of Rs 5.40 crore to the said shell entity in order to depict the entire arrangement as a genuine commercial transaction," the ED alleged.
