02 Jul Reliance Communications says SBI to declare loan A/C as ‘fraud’, report Anil Ambani to RBI
Reliance Communications confirmed this move in an official filing under market rules. “This is to inform you that Company has received letter dated June 23, 2025 (received on June 30, 2025) from SBI (marked to the Company and its erstwhile director – Anil Dhirajlal Ambani), inter alia, stating that SBI has decided to report the loan account of the Company as ‘fraud’ and to report the name of Anil Dhirajlal Ambani (erstwhile director of the Company) to the RBI, as per the extant RBI guidelines,” Reliance Communications said.
In response to the development, Agarwal Law Associates on behalf of their clients RCom and Anil Ambani expressed shock at what they said was an ex-parte order of SBI. “Vide our letter dated October 21, 2024 we had submitted that as the bank’s show cause notice (SCN) dated December 20, 2023 had been issued prior to the revised RBI Master Directions dated July 15, 2024 which completely superseded the directions under which the SCN had been issued (and which are no longer in existence), the bank would need to withdraw the said SCN,” the law firm said.
Agarwal Associates said that after almost a one-year silence by SBI, RCom and Anil Ambani was under the impression that the bank had accepted the client’s position and did not intend to precipitate the matter.
“We reiterate that our client was not a whole-time director but was a non-executive director on the board of RCom and not responsible for the day to day functioning and operations of RCom which was undertaken by the key management personnel,” the law firm said in its letter addressed to the SBI fraud monitoring department, the bank’s chairman, manging director and deputy managing director.
Repeated warnings sent
This did not happen overnight. SBI issued show cause notices in December 2023, March 2024 and again in September 2024. The bank says it looked at the replies. It found the company failed to explain why it broke the terms of the loan. The bank also says the company did not satisfy its questions about irregularities in how the account was run.After that, SBI’s fraud identification committee took the final call. It concluded there was enough to tag the loan as fraudulent. The next step is to send the names of Reliance Communications and Anil Ambani to the Reserve Bank of India.
Link to Anil Ambani group
Reliance Communications is part of the Anil Ambani-led Reliance Group. Anil Ambani is the brother of Mukesh Ambani, head of Reliance Industries, the oil-to-telecom giant. For now, both State Bank of India and Anil Ambani have not replied to requests for comment from Reuters.
Reliance Communications is part of the group led by Anil Ambani, the brother of billionaire and one of Asia’s richest men, Mukesh Ambani, who chairs the oil-to-telecoms conglomerate Reliance Industries. Reliance Communications disclosed in April that as of March 2025 it had a total debt of 404 billion rupees ($4.71 billion).
“Legal advice is being sought on the way forward with respect to this development,” the company said.
Company says insolvency protects it
Reliance Communications has been under a corporate insolvency resolution process since 2019. In its statement, the company reminded investors that any loans linked to the period before insolvency must be handled within the resolution plan.
“The credit facilities or loans referred to in the SBI letter, dated June 23, 2025, pertain to the period prior to the CIRP. These are required to be necessarily resolved as a part of a resolution plan or in liquidation, under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC),” the company said.
It added, “By virtue of protection available under Section 32A of IBC, upon the approval of the resolution plan by the NCLT, the company is to have immunity against any liability for any purported offences committed prior to the commencement of the CIRP.”
The plan has creditor approval but is still awaiting a final nod from the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT). Until then, the company says it is protected from any new suits or cases. It also said legal advice is being sought on what to do next.
Under Indian banking laws once an account is reported as fraudulent it is referred to enforcement agencies for criminal action and the borrower is barred from securing any more finance from banks and other regulated financial institutions for an initial period of five years.
Canara Bank’s earlier attempt
This is not the first time a bank has tried to label Reliance Communications’ loan as fraud. Canara Bank did so in November 2024. But in February 2025, the Bombay High Court stayed Canara Bank’s action. The court said the bank had not given the borrower a proper hearing, as required by Reserve Bank of India rules.
Reliance Communications made this latest disclosure in a regulatory exchange filing on July 1st, 2025.
(With inputs from Reuters)