The Delhi High Court on Friday, while hearing the petitions of two companies against the attachment of properties of Anil Ambani Group by the ED in a money laundering case, asked why this petition was not filed in Mumbai? Because he may not have the right to hear these matters here. Justice Purushendra Kumar Kaurav said that the company is in Mumbai and hence the action should be initiated there. Why should we hear here? Why should this matter not go to Mumbai?
Senior advocate Siddharth Aggarwal appeared for companies Reliance Realty and Campion Properties Limited and asserted that the Delhi High Court can hear the petitions and they have a case. Meanwhile, advocates Zoheb Hussain and Vivek Gurnani appeared for the ED and said that the Adjudicating Authority under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) is already looking into the case and the petitioners should present their arguments before the authority.
After hearing for some time, Justice Kaurav asked the petitioners in the case to file short notes on the maintainability of the petition (whether it is maintainable or not). Delhi High Court will hear the case next on January 30. According to the information, ED has provisionally attached properties worth more than several thousand crores belonging to different entities of Reliance Anil Ambani Group under Section 5(1) of PMLA.
The ED is investigating Anil Ambani's companies on allegations of alleged misuse of bank loans, loan evergreening, diversion to related parties, routing through shell entities and siphoning of funds, leading to huge non-performing assets (NPAs) and fraud declarations by banks. The ED has claimed that since 2010-12, RCom (Reliance Communications) and its group companies raised thousands of crores of rupees from Indian banks, of which ₹19,694 crore is still outstanding.
These assets became NPA and 5 banks declared the loan accounts of RCom as fraud. The ED investigation has claimed that the loan taken by one entity from one bank was used by other entities to repay loans taken from other banks, transferred to related parties and invested in mutual funds, which was in violation of the terms of the loan sanction letter.
