ED Arrests Third Person In Reliance Power’s ₹68 Crore Fake Bank Guarantee Case

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has made a third arrest in its money laundering investigation connected to a Rs 68 crore alleged fake bank guarantee case linked to Reliance Power, a company under businessman Anil Ambani’s group, official sources said on Friday.

According to PTI, Amar Nath Dutta was taken into custody on Thursday under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). A special court subsequently remanded him in ED custody for four days, officials said.

The agency has already arrested former Reliance Power Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Ashok Kumar Pal and Partha Sarathi Biswal, Managing Director of the Odisha-based firm Biswal Tradelink, as part of the same probe, PTI reported.

The case concerns a bank guarantee worth Rs 68.2 crore submitted to the Solar Energy Corporation of India Limited (SECI) on behalf of Reliance NU BESS Limited, a subsidiary of Reliance Power Limited, which was later found to be fake. The company, listed on the stock exchange, was earlier known as Maharashtra Energy Generation Limited, officials said.

According to the ED, Biswal Tradelink allegedly operated a network offering forged bank guarantees to business entities for a commission. The money laundering case originated from a Delhi Police Economic Offences Wing (EOW) FIR registered in November 2024, which alleged that Biswal Tradelink was issuing such guarantees in exchange for an 8 per cent fee.

The agency’s probe found that Reliance NU BESS Ltd had submitted a guarantee purportedly issued by FirstRand Bank in Manila, Philippines, though the bank has no branch in that country, reported PTI.

Reliance Group has maintained that Anil Ambani “was not on the Board of Reliance Power Limited for more than 3.5 years and is not concerned with this matter in any manner.” The company earlier described itself as a “victim of fraud, forgery and cheating conspiracy” and said it had made the required stock exchange disclosures on 7 November 2024.

A company spokesperson said a criminal complaint had been filed with the Delhi Police’s EOW in October 2024 against the third-party firm, adding that “the due process of law would follow.”

ED sources also stated that Biswal Tradelink used an email domain s-bi.co.in, designed to resemble sbi.co.in, to create a false impression of legitimacy and to mislead SECI into believing that communications came from the State Bank of India (SBI).

The domain was used to send forged documents to SECI, officials alleged, adding that Biswal Tradelink appeared to be a “paper entity” with its registered office located in a residential property belonging to a relative of Biswal.

(With inputs from PTI)